Culture Journal, Species: Artemia franciscana (GSL)

General
Species:   Artemia franciscana:  (Salt Lake Artemia, Small Strain)
Species description:   Salt Lake Artemia, Small Strain. Adults are roughly 5-7mm long
Culture source (link if possible):   Brine shrimp direct grade A eggs. http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/Grade-A-Brine-Shrimp-Eggs-c20.html 
If algae, CCMP # (Optional): 
http://ccmp.bigelow.edu/
Culture Establishment Date:  4/06/2013
Continuation Date:  7/4/2013

Culturing Vessel Details
Salinity:  1.019-1.026 pretty tolerant, wide range. 
Temperature:  75-78
pH:  anywhere from 7.6 up to 8.5 

Vessel description:  5g bucket
Lighting description:  ambient light from nanno cultures
Lighting cycle:  16on, 8 off
Aeration description:  steady stream, surface of water is rolling

Methodologies
Split methodology: never split, just harvest a net every few days (or however often I want/need it)

Culture medium description: 
saltwater with live nanno (often throw this in there with splits from nano cultures), spirulina powder (first dissolved in hot saltwater), and glycerin free nanno paste (from BSD) 1 cube every 2 nights. 

Cell count: No less than 100 adults (or pre adults) at any given time. (minus maybe deep harvests and vacation modes) bunches of jv. and napulii are also in this population but I do not count/ or include these in count numbers. 
   

Reference links:
http://ut.water.usgs.gov/greatsaltlake/shrimp/ 

Additional Information
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Notes: 
On going culture, to feed my very picky Banggai cardinals... and anyone who can grab it before them!


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I have had this culture going for a long time now, and figured I needed to get it up here, with as many people that ask about it. lol. So here is what I do. ask if you have any questions. 
 
 

Ok here is where I keep the culture of brine, it is the far right bucket under the lamp (lamp is no longer over it)... I keep it here in the 'box' to keep temperatures up so as to speed up the life cycle... as I need a lot and this is the only way to keep up with them!  
 
I have grown and they do tolerate lower temps really any fluctuating temps, as well as fluctuating salt levels.... really an easy species to work with as they can be very forgiving (and it's nice to have a quick feed alternative around).

Here are my chicken scratch notes to the culture- for my references.  
 
Note: if you are starting up a culture from hatching cysts you can hatch out a small amount for 4 or 5 days for every other day pattern.... just adding all the naupulii you want to your grow out vessel. For me I was using a bunch of it, but needed to establish a culture as well so I hatched every day, while if your establishing you only need to do every other day or every third day. all this is doing is establishing different sizes within your culture and promoting mating behavior amongst the males (a little healthy competition never hurt anyone!). 
 
 

as you can see I waited to do a water change until after a minimum of 1 month post culture start. Perfectly fine to do this, and to be honest with you, if your keeping lower densities there's no harm in keeping the water changes infrequent as long as your critters are happy and procreating they are fine with the water. I keep pretty heavily stocked densities so I change the water more often... In the beginning it was a 100% water change monthly.... but again this could be trimmed back if you need (pending on actual density needed). I just needed to have nice water conditions quickly to establish a large REPRODUCTIVE culture, not just a bunch of live adults. If you can't get to water changes more frequently ChlorAmX usually does a pretty good job tidying them over between water changes if you need. 
 
 

Ok, time to show these little boogers in closer detail for you guys... Here is a petri dish full of little jv.'s and a few adults, (sorry I meant to not sieve off so many adults for comparison)... but you can see. Also at the top left(ish) you can see the redish (dark) colored male this is what they look like when they are old and dead. well spent as I would say! 
 

Here you can see there are 3 jv. brine in the water droplet on the slide... kinda crazy how small huh!?!
 

 
 

Ok yikes! I need to update this journal with a bit of info for you! 
 
OK THIS IS HOW I UTILIZE MY CYSTS/HATCH OUT FOR BABIES
For my babies that I raise I use to decapsulate all the cysts... then really slacked off and just got lazy about it... now I just give them a good freshwater rinse before I put them in my baby tanks and everyone was fine (minus the brine that were now meals...) So... in my case, I use my reef water out of my 90... simply grab a pop bottle turn it upside down, cut the bottom of the bottle open, clip it to the side of the tank when it is half filled with water, throw in your cysts... and walla! 24 hrs later, a zillion babies ready for your Banggai feast. Simply put I KNOW this is the lazy man's way of doing it, but it is quick and efficient for my particular space I have available. It does come with it's negative side too though, I have never had it happen but there is always the inherent risk of it tipping into the tank and in a 90g reef Lord only knows what it could do to that system if there was something those cysts were carrying. (yes, I still chose to do this as of right now! lol)... truly a lazy mans way... but it works.
 
However, when I am not so 'in-between' baby hatches and am really needing to produce a ton of batches or off set timed batches I just use the pop bottles in a heated 5g bucket... same thing (just probably safer). the room temp is constantly around 72 so, it's a bit chilly to get 24hr hatch outs... hence the bucket. otherwise if I had a fish room set at 80 probably wouldn't need this, could just do counter top hatch outs. 
 
**I currently do NOT run an air bubbler on these hatch tanks as I can get well over 70-80% the first day, and the remaining in the following 24hrs. I just siphon through a 180µm sieve (toss that water out) and then in the same container with remaining eggs NOT rinsing out (at most just rinsing eggs down into the new water that have crept up the sides of the pop bottle), I toss in some more tank water and set it back up in the tank. anything I don't use for feeding by the time the naupulii are past 48hrs old gets thrown into my first "ADULT CULTURE" bucket... hence I always have lots in there and size range too. 
 
As for my adult culture I feed them finely ground spirulina powder usually take some fresh salt water (1 cup 'ish') heat it up in the microwave and dissolve about a 1/4 -1/2 tsp of the powder in the hot water then shake vigorously... I just squirt in how much I need to keep the culture a medium green. (I know that's a horrible term for descriptive purposes!) darker than pistachio green and lighter than forest green. lol... But essentially I use this  dissolved spirulina mix up within 1-2 days (put extra in fridge in need be)on per 5g bucket... I also culture live nano so when I have extra I just throw that in the bucket too. 
 
 
 

ok, I am going to try this out... my adult brine culture definitely LOVES it when I throw extra rotigrow or rotigreen in there... mmm?? thought occured to me. I am harvesting around 2g of rotifer water and critters a night. (or every other night)... What if i just seived my roti's, use them as I need, then tossed this water into the brine culture instead of tossing it out. it still has green tint to it, so it is obviously got something in it still! ??? wonder if this will yuck up the water too quick. 
 
??problem I see is water volume though, wish there was an efficient way to condense this.... before adding it to the brine bucket. you know?? thoughts thoughts... really need a rotovap! 
 
Will split adult culture and run a test on the split to see how this goes.  

oI have split the culture of Artemia and have begun doing water top offs with the rotigrow+ harvest water with rotifers... have definite cross contamination, but am not too worried about this... as I could care less what shakes down in this bucket. totally experimental. I started this bucket with only 1/3 full water volume though... not sure how to 'condense' the water coming in.... mmm... I don't think I can get more than a 4-5 days roti water into this bucket. practical problem with this 'grand scheme'... lol. 
 
Although the brine and rotifers seem to coexist fine, they both clear out that feed quickly, maybe they too need a nightly water harvest? and just replace it with the roti harvest... will try this. Might also through in som T. californicus, lots of dead sheds in their... bet they'd be happy! 
 
 

I've always been told A. salina was in GSL and A franciscana is from the SF Bay... but I just read they believe A. franciscana is now a second species that inhabits GSL.  It used to be if you wanted small ones, you had to get them from SF Bay Brands.

yeah, gresham I have both technically... and I use both regularly. I am not sure theirs too much of a difference once you get to adult size though (definitely a difference in newly hatched though...). Either way, the fish eat 'em like they are going out of style!  
 
 

Just thought I would update with some pertinent information about culture maintenance. I don't have  much in here in the way of that. 
 
In the beginning I did monthly water changes (don't see the point of this quite frankly...as it was such a low density culture they could have been completely fine with once every few months). But now at higher densities they need at least 75% every 2 weeks if not 100% (which I am doing now). Every few days when or if I need to harvest any jv./pre adult size brine (560µm-900µm) for feeding I do a 'decant' old water with individuals through my sieve set (gets a good estimation on population dynamics as well) and top off with ASW (usually no more than 0.5-1 gallon). I ONLY take 1/4 to 1/2 from this size range if I am feeding though. Lately it's been closer to 1/2 and I'm starting to see a good size size gap in the culture... really need to cut back down to closer to 1/4 to keep the culture numbers up in suitable female's carrying. I do the decanting because the bottom of the bucket gets pretty sludged up with sheds and crap... really need to invest in another compact culture system from reed... but haven't done this. lol. This decant I always dump a few individuals but not to worried about it. I get cleaner buckets longer with this. I have switched them to a knock off cheapy salt and they don't mind. "top fin" sea salt. Whatever, it's cheap and their still making babies.  
 
If I need to harvest adults I can take my 3" regular fish net and do a little half scoop or a nice big scoop and take adults only out with this. It definitely gets rid of the big males... that are pretty well spent. Nice way to keep the population young, and my Banggai's don't complain.  
 
***ALL BRINE, NO MATTER THE SIZE, ARE RINSED/ DUNKED INTO FRESH TAP WATER FOR A MINIMUM OF 20 SECONDS BEFORE GETTING FRESH SALT WATER PRIOR TO FEEDINGS!***

The culture is still going strong, but after putting in an 'establishment' report I discovered these are not classified as an FC1 but instead an FC0, which means no points will be awarded. So, I am addressing this hiccup as I see fit. Here is the link about the discussion in case folks want some more information about it. 
 
http://www.mbisite.org/Forums/tm.aspx?high=&m=85882&mpage=1#85958

Well, I think I'm going to break down these guys as I'm no longer using them for banggai weaning. I've moved to using mysid shrimp for that... so this culture isn't really necessary anymore. Though it is fun to enrich adults up and feed up everyone and watch them hunt.  
 
I've found a guy here locally who wants them so I'll just let him take over the culture instead of tossing them out. 
 
Just updating the journal and closing this one out. 

Was there ever any update on the classification challenge? I have had a continuous culture for about 2 months now, and it is easily as much work as rotifers, nanno, as other FC1 food cutures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken

Not that I am aware of, at least not yet. It is still classified as being 'evaluated' so... my guess is a few more people need to review it still.