About The Brine Shrimp Factory
What I refer to as the Brine Shrimp Factory is just that, a little assembly line of brine shrimp eggs we hatch to feed to the youngest of fry. I don't like to send anything to it's death but after having over 50% mortality rates with our fry I had to resign myself that this was necessary. We use 2 litre pop bottles with the tops cut off to cultivate the brine shrimp. We put them in the tank to keep them at a constant temperature of 82 degrees faherheit (hence the heater). We run airlines to each container to keep the water both aerated and the eggs and subsequent freshly hatched brine shrimp tumbling.

The Process
Other than the equipment you are going to need some brine shrimp eggs, aquarium salt and dechlorinator. We first add the water to the bottle and add a drop of dechlorinator. Next we add 1/4 teaspoon of brine shrimp eggs. I'm not sure if its necessary but we let the eggs tumble in the water for an hour before adding the salt. After an hour we put in just over one tablespoon of aquarium salt. It usually takes close to 24 hours for the eggs to fully hatch. To remove the shrimp from the bottle, first we take the bottle out of the tank and let everything "settle". Normally the freshly hatched brine shrimp will congregate toward the bottom of the bottle. We then use a turkey baster to suck the brine shrimp nauplii from the bottom of the bottle and squirt them into a brine shrimp net. Oh!! Forgot to mention you'll need one of those too! *lol* Brine shrimp nets have extremely small webbing. Some of the shrimp will still fall through so we do this over a glass container. The vast majority will remain in the net. After we have the amount of brine shrimp we want in the net, we rinse the brine shrimp off with tank water. (I just dunk the net in a tank) Then I just take the net to whichever tank I want to put the shrimp in and swish it around til the shrimp are all out of the net, take the net back and rinse it out under the faucet, dump whatever is in the glass container back to the pop bottle, put the pop bottle back in the tank and return the airline and wait for the next feeding. :) We like to have a fresh batch going at all times, that is why you see two containers in the tank. Normally a batch will stay fresh for up to 2 days. Once the water in the bottle starts to get cloudy at all I pitch it and start another one.

It probably isn't necessary to go to the lengths that we do to cultivate brine shrimp but for the amount that we use, this is what works for us. :)

The Occupants
Well... I think it's safe to assume what goes here.