Brine shrimp....I did a thing

[CaptainBarnicles]

I like to hatch baby brine shrimp on a very small scale, just for a bit of variety and to supplement the diet. It's almost a waste of time with big rainbows but the kids enjoy the show so I do it now and then. I tried a couple of years ago to culture brine shrimp in a tank with a heater and sponge filter but it was a massive faff and they didn't live long enough to even reach adult maturity.

I was in a rush recently and just chucked whatever was left over from the hatching into a plastic tub in the garden with the intention to deal with it later, promptly forgot all about it until the next time I did bbs....when I checked the tub, loads of them! The tub has been sat outside in the cold, below 10°C most nights, no filter or anything, fly and spider carcasses littering the bottom and the odd leaf blown in too so I emptied the leftovers into the tub and left it again... today I'm looking at adult brine shrimp. Are we just making things difficult for ourselves by overcomplicating things?

 

[GaryE]

We can be at times. That's a description of how I feed my many tanks with Daphnia all summer. I don;t really much except harvest.

My big rainbows used to eat freshly hatched artemia. I figure I'm a big galoot and I eat little things like rice or berries. So they can too.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

I do frozen foods for convenience, but it's nice to treat them now and then. I'd rather eat a fresh peach than a tinned one but sometimes you have to make do.

If it's going to stay as easy as just topping up the water and harvesting the brine shrimp then awesome

 

[Naughts]

Is there any brine left or are they living in fresh water?

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

They're in brine still. The salt stays behind when the water evaporates so I guess just making sure it's topped up keeps it at the right salinity? No idea I'm just throwing in the leftovers after a hatch. I've made sure to keep it in the sun for algae but I'm literally not doing anything else