Establishing a self-propagating, sustainable colony of brine shrimp isn't a very easy task. Resources on the subject are sparse, and having conducted research for several weeks, I can safely say there is very little information online on how to propagate them.
Brine Shrimp, also known as "Sea Monkeys" from the popular children's toy, are a kind of small invertebrate that lives in semi-salty waters (brine, from which they get their name.)
The following images, I obtained with my microscope a few days ago.
Any environment, marine or freshwater, follows a simple cycle - waste is turned into ammonia. Ammonia is turned into nitrites. Nitrites are turned into nitrates, and then taken up by plants to be used as fertilizer - until the cycle repeats. That's the beauty of nature.
Brine shrimp, on their own.
My first attempt at propagating shrimp ended in disaster - while hatching them was an easy enough task, keeping them alive, in an uncycled plastic box I'd used as a "pond" of sorts, wasn't. After feeding them wheat flour, I assume that feeding slightly too much (two pinches) caused the "pond" to crash. This killed off the vast majority of the shrimp.
Knowing how hardy living things are, I opted to let nature run its course, and for life to find a way - sure enough, a few days later, the survivors "rebuilt".
Hatching a brine shrimp culture from eggs is not a very difficult task - these resilient little bugs will emerge under the right salinity, temperature, and oxygen content. Beyond that, you don't need to do anything. A simple aquarium water heater, an air pump bubbling through the water, and a tablespoon of salt per liter of water is enough to hatch your very own shrimp
Now, before you can get them to reproduce succesfully, you need
Left to their own devices, brine shrimp will reproduce by laying eggs which hatch incredibly quickly. Amazingly enough, these little creatures are capable of a second form of reproduction - when subjected to a highly stressful environment (whether it be low in oxygen, cold, or high in ammonia / salinity), they will lay a special kind of egg, which can survive almost any environment.
In this "stasis", the eggs can be stored for months, until the conditions are right. These eggs are known as "cysts", and this is the form you can find brine shrimp in stores. Most of the brine shrimp supply in the world is produced in the Great Salt Lake in sunny Utah.
Whatever you opt to do with your shrimp from hereonafter, is up to you - I personally enjoy keeping them to watch, and occasionally feed to my fish - as the self-propagating shrimp will be in a variety of sizes (from tiny to adult), and my fish range from fry to full-sized 1.5-inchers, this is a perfect arrangement for me.
They are packed with nutrients, and essential fatty acids. While the adults are not as nutritious as the babies (and I do understand how what I'd just said sounds), they are still a fantastic live feeder.
The way I look at it - these shrimp would be living a much more difficult and unfortunate life in nature. In my opinion, this is the trade-off with all pets - and, provided a pet owner exercises good judgement, and cares well for their animal - making educated decisions and actually learnig the fundamentals of how their pet lives, and what it needs - such an existence, even in an enclosure, is at the very least as preferable as getting torn apart by a predator in nature.
To have a free-roaming bunny in your home is certainly no more cruel than live predation by a coyote. If little bunny could speak, it'd likely agree.
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