Key Points of Brine Shrimp Hatching Technology and Detailed Explanation of Dormant Egg Lifespan

Brine shrimp, also known as brine shrimp worms or fairy shrimp, live in salt lakes and salt pans on the mainland and have relatively high nutritional value. Brine shrimp swim very beautifully in water, and they are also excellent bait for fish. Let's take a look below at the key points of brine shrimp hatching technology and how long dormant eggs live.

1. What are the key points of brine shrimp hatching technology?

1. Fill an open container with clean water to a depth of about 5 cm, add half a spoonful of table salt, stir until dissolved, and after the water surface becomes still, evenly sprinkle the brine shrimp eggs on the surface. At this time, try not to shake the container, so that the brine shrimp eggs do not stick to the container walls because of water vibration.

2. After about 10 hours, brine shrimp larvae have already appeared, and after 16 hours a large number of shrimp larvae have hatched. At this point, pour the hatching container, together with the water and shrimp, into a prepared large beverage bottle.

3. After standing still in the large beverage bottle for 20——30 minutes, you can see that most of the shrimp larvae have gathered at the bottom of the container in an orange-red cloud-like mass. Then you can suck the shrimp larvae into a small plastic bottle with a pipette. Note that the pipette should not be inserted all the way to the very bottom of the container, to prevent debris from being sucked out. The best position is right in the “orange-red cloud” (the center of the shrimp larvae's activity), so that the separated brine shrimp are also the cleanest.

4. Slowly pour the water from the small beverage bottle onto a very fine mesh net, then rinse a few times with a gentle stream of tap water, and you will have relatively clean, live first food that small fish can eat——brine shrimp.

5. Generally, when breeding small fish at home, the quantity and frequency will not be too much at once. Brine shrimp that the small fish cannot finish in one feeding can be frozen immediately for later use. When fed later, just like feeding frozen hamburger, the small fish will not refuse it, and the nutrition is still rich.

6. If you want to hatch more brine shrimp at one time, or make brine shrimp hatching more continuous, you can use several more sets of the above equipment and simply operate in the same way.

2. How long do brine shrimp dormant eggs live?

Dormant eggs stored under low-temperature and dry conditions can survive for about 5 years. Only when they re-enter normal-temperature seawater, or absorb water in a moist environment, will the embryos inside the shell be stimulated to begin metabolic activity, enter the hatching process, and finally break out of the shell to become nauplii.

Newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii carry a yolk sac and do not need to feed within one day, growing by consuming their internal nutrients. From the perspective of nutritional value, after one day it decreases by about 20%. If nauplii are to be used to feed small fish or the fry of large fish, they should be harvested and fed as soon as possible during the hatching process. Under suitable conditions, after about ten days of rearing, nauplii can reach the length of adult brine shrimp, roughly more than 1 cm for females and 0.7 cm for males.