Use of Artemia in Aquaculture in BangladeshIntroductionArtemia, also known as brine shrimp, is a minute crustacean, has become an easy and most convenient food items among the live diets used in aquaculture of fishes. Over the course of time it has gained much popularity in many aquaculturists because of its multiple usages in fish culture with various forms such as Artemia nauplii, decapsulated Artemia cysts and on-grown Artemia.

In most intensive aquaculture system, the newborn fish larvae rely on live food items. But the culture and collection of highly nutritious natural food such as crustaceans for rearing the fish are not only always economically feasible but also poorly available. Crustaceans occur naturally on hyper saline water which acts as the predominant factor for prohibiting Artemia populations from being present in humid climatic conditions like Bangladesh.

What is ArtemiaArtemia is a genus of aquatic crustaceans known as brine shrimp, Aqua Dragons, or Sea Monkeys. Artemia, the only genus in the family Artemiidae, has changed little externally since the Triassic period.

Scientific name: ArtemiaPhylum: Arthropoda Higher classification: ArtemiidaeOrder: AnostracaSpecies: Artemia franciscana, A. monica, A. persimilis

A. salina, A. sinica, A. tibetiana, A. urmiana

Fig: Artemia sp.Brine Shrimp Fact Sheet

1. Under optimal conditions, brine shrimp grows from larvae to adult in less than two weeks, increasing in length by a factor of 20 and in biomass by a factor of 500.  

2. Artemia can be found in a wide range of water salinities; i.e. from 10 ppt to saturation level. Above 100 ppt no predators or food competitors survive, resulting in a monoculture under natural conditions.  

3. There are literally hundreds of locations on the five continents where brine shrimp live, and many natural strains of Artemia thrive in coastal salinas as well as in inland salt lakes (rich in chlorine, sulphate, or carbonate salts).  

4. Artemia can reproduce by two ways, viviparous or live reproduction (free swimming nauplii) occurring in lower salinity levels. Oviparous reproduction occurs at salinities exceeding 150 ppt (the ocean is around 35 ppt).

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 5. Artemia has a high fecundity rate (more than 100 cysts or nauplii, every four days)

and a long lifespan (exceeding 6 months). 6. The natural distribution or "dispersion" of Artemia an be enhanced by human

intervention, i.e., introduction or "transplantation" of a selected Artemia strain into a suitable environment. 

7. The quality of the Artemia produced differs from strain to strain and from location to location as a result of genotypical respectively phenotypical variations. The Artemia largely reflect the food conditions of the high levels of heavy metals and/or chlorinated hydrocarbons and/or deficient in essential fatty acids for marine predators.  

8. Artemia are non-selective filter feeders and feed on particulate matter of biological origin as well as on living organisms of the appropriate size range (microscopic algae and bacteria). In fact, due to the absence of predators and food competitors in hyper saline conditions, Artemia often develop into large monocultures, the densities of which are mostly controlled by food limitation.

Nutritional QualityThe nutritional properties of newly hatched brine shrimp are high in lipids and unsaturated fatty acids (but low in calcium). Dried brine shrimp nauplii contain 37%–71% protein, 12%–30% lipid, 11%–23% carbohydrate, and 4%–21% ash.

The fatty acid compositions of the nauplii are highly environmentally determined. Also the nutritional quality of commercially available brine shrimp strains being relatively poor in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5n-3), and especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3). Since these components are critical for the larvae development, it is common practice to feed this live prey with emulsions of marine oils that are rich in the EPA and DHA, which is referred as enrichment processes.

Importance of Artemia to aquacultureRegardless of the vast improvement in fish nutrition industry there is still no artificial feed formulation available to completely substitute for Artemia. In fact, Artemia remains essential in most marine finfish and shellfish hatchery operations especially during the earliest life stages (Kolkovski et al., 2004). Artemia is the most widely used live feed in larviculture due to its high nutritional quality (Sorgeloos et al., 1986) and ease of use. Annually, more than 1,500 metric tonnes of dry Artemia cysts are marketed worldwide to feed fish and shellfish (Dhont and Sorgeloos, 2002). Shrimp hatcheries are the major consumers of Artemia cysts (80 to 85% of the total sales), mainly in China, South East Asia, Ecuador and other Latin-American countries.

Benefits of Using Decapsulated CystsThe hard egg shell that covers an Artemia cyst can be completely removed by short exposure to a bleach solution. This procedure is called decapsulation and decapsulated cysts offer a

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number of advantages to the home hobbyist compared to non-decapsulated ones:

Brine shrimp egg shells are not introduced into the culture tanks. When hatching normal cysts, the separation of nauplii from their shells is not always possible. Unhatched cysts and empty shells can cause deleterious effects in the larval tanks when they are ingested by the fry, often times the egg casing cannot be digested and may obstruct the gut.

Nauplii that are hatched out of decapsulated cysts have a higher energy content and individual weight (30-55% depending on strain) than regular nauplii.

Decapsulation results in a disinfection of the cysts. A culture infection due to contamination by “dirty” brine shrimp eggs is common in aquaculture facilities, fortunately not so much in home culture.

Decapsulated cysts can be used immediately as an energy-rich food source for fish and shrimp larvae.

The illumination requirements for hatching decapsulated cysts are lower.

Advantages of using Artemia as test organismArtemia has been suggested by many authors as a model organism for studying the biology of infections, host-microbes interactions or the effect of chemotherapy agents against diseases occurring in penaeid shrimp, lobsters and other crustaceans (Overton and Bland, 1981; Criado-Fornelio et al., 1989; Verschuere et al., 1999, 2000b, Marques et al., 2004). Artemia was also used as a model to study regulation of gene expression during embryonic development (Escalante and Sastre, 1994). According to Marques et al. (2005), Artemia has several striking biological characteristics and advantages, enabling their potential use as model system for basic research in animal biology, such as:

(i) The possibility to be cultured under axenic and gnotobiotic conditions using various type of feed sources with a simple experimental apparatus (Verschuere et al., 1999, 2000a,b);

ii) Short generation time (2-3 weeks), although under optimal conditions the brine shrimp can live for several months, they can grow from nauplius to adult in as little as 8 days (Van Stappen, 1996);

(iii) Availability of large quantities of cysts, different species and strains from all continents (and hence different genetic background, Bossier et al., 2004);

(iv) Small sized organism that can be easily cultured at high density and/or on a small scale, using very simple culture systems.

Industrial hatcherySince the development of commercial marine fish culture in the late 1970s, the demand for brine shrimp cysts has gradually increased from a few tonnes to approximately 800 tonnes per annum, representing approximately 40% of the total aquaculture demand for feeds for early stages. The price of the cysts varies during the last a few decades depending on both demand and the quality of the cysts. During the last 25 years, the Great Salt Lake in the

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United States has been the major supplier of brine shrimp cysts to the world aquaculture industry and the subject of numerous speculations regarding its capacity to sustain a growing aquaculture industry. Other sites for cyst production, such as lake Urmia in Iran, Aibi Lake in China, Bolshoye Yarovoye in Siberia, Kara Bogaz Gol in Turkmenistan, and several lakes in Kazakhstan.

Present Status in BangladeshArtemia is being used in large scale in the hatcheries of Bangladesh since it is one of the key items in shrimp and fishery hatcheries. However, because of its unusual occurrence and the difficulties of collecting cysts, Artemia cysts are being commercially imported from abroad countries to meet up the increasing demand where the mass production of cysts of Artemia in Bangladesh is still at the premature stage. Although a number of fundamental works have been conducted on Artemia under laboratory condition, only a few preliminary works on mass Artemia production have been reported. Some major studies were conducted on the production of Artemia biomass and cysts from the traditional solar salt beds of coastal areas of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has suitable water quality that can be used for salt Artemia production in winter season. So the present 12,000 ha of salt farming area of Bangladesh can be used to produce 180 metric tons of dry cysts and 2,400 metric tons of biomass per annum.

Troubleshooting an Artemia CultureThe two problems occur during culturing Artemia, Slow growth Slow growth is usually attributed to environmental issues such as low temperatures, an improper pH, too low or too high salinity, and insufficient food or poor food quality.The culture crashingThere are several possible causes for a Artemia culture crash.

The easiest problem to resolve is low dissolved oxygen. This is remedied by increasing the amount of air and amount of water motion thru the culture.

Secondly, the health status of Artemia can be visually assessed by observing their swimming motion.

Another reason for crashing cultures is a bacterial or protozoan contamination of the culture. This can be avoided by decapsulating the cysts before hatching.

Healthy cultures react to photo stimuli, and rapidly gather at the light source. Slow, dispersed swimming indicates that the animals are in poor condition. Health can also be assessed by visually inspecting the Artemia under a microscope. Well-fed Artemia have a completely filled gut and release compact fecal pellets. They should also have clean swimming appendages and a clean mouth region suggesting that the animal is in good health. Underfed animals have an empty or barely filled gut and tend to release loose fecal pellets. If their mouth parts or appendages are covered with food particles, this suggests the animal is feeding poorly.

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Maintenance problem in BangladeshMost people who hatch brine shrimp do so in a low volume batch. Once the nauplii are hatched, the culture is fed, and utilized for 2 or 3 days. After 3 days, the culture is often depleted of nauplii and a new culture, that was started the day before replaces the previous one. Some people desire a continuous culture, and this presents a few new problems. In smaller containers, water quality can deteriorate rapidly, especially as biomass and feeding increase. Furthermore, excess foods not eaten by the Artemia will decompose in the culture medium by bacteria, thereby deteriorating water quality due to a gradual buildup of toxic substances such as ammonia and nitrite. Try to prevent overfeeding by observing the amount of food added during each feeding and wait until the culture begins to clear before you add more food.

Once a sizable population of nauplii is generated, it is often difficult to balance the need to feed the culture, and the resulting decrease in water quality from the pollution that feeding causes, especially when non-living feeds are used.

How to OvercomePerforming a 50% water change weekly will help overcome this problem. Additionally, siphoning and cleaning the bottom of the culture vessel every few days will remove accumulated detritus and prevent further water quality issues. If the goal is to have long-term culture then one should consider adding a small sponge filter or other nitrifying filter to the culture.

Other problems Problems hatching brine shrimp Sources of Brine Shrimp eggs is not always locally available Sometimes there is a scarcity of expert personnel Hatching rate is not good enough People are not aware about the use of brine shrimp Hatching facilities are not good Maintenance is costly

Prospect of Artemia Culture in BangladeshAt present, Bangladesh is showing better performance in aquaculture and day by day the land occupied by aqua farming is increasing with the increasing of protein demand. Since most fish and shrimps rely on live diets in the early larval stages, there is always a need for nutritious diets. Among those live diets, Artemia has become the most reliable and absolutely necessary food items. The modified salt beds of Bangladesh can successfully be used for culturing Artemia during winter months. But the question remains unanswered whether the culture of Artemia only during winter months will meet the requirement for live diets or not? Apparently, the aquaculturists must focus on indoor hatching process of Artemia. Furthermore, the culture of Artemia is easy and requires fewer materials. The aquaculturists can easily feed their fish larvae with newly hatched nauplii, decapsulated cysts, dry cysts in powdered forms and also adults, according to the nutritional requirements.

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ConclusionBrine shrimp nauplii are an easy and convenient food source for larger fish fry. The ability to nutritionally enrich Artemia nauplii provides us with a delivery platform to specifically target potential predators’ nutritional requirements and met these needs. Feeding and providing proper nutrition to fish larvae is the greatest hurdle faced by all potential marine fish breeders. With a bit of closet space, spare tanks, extra aquarium supplies, and the information provided in the past Breeder’s Net columns, virtually any marine hobbyist should be able to raise enough live food to consider breeding marine fish at home.

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Ahmed, S. U., and Awal, S. 1991. Integrated Production of Artemia with Salt from the Solar Salt Works of Bangladesh. Univ. J. Zool. Vol. 10-11. Bangladesh: Deptt. Zool. Univ. Rajshahi.

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Sorgeloos, P., and Kulasekarapandian, S. 1984. “Production and Use of Artemia in Aquaculture.” CMFRI Special Publication 15: 1-73.

Vanhaecke, P., and Sorgeloos, P. 1980. International Study on ArtemiaIV, the Biometrics of Artemia Strains from Different Geographical Origin. The Brine Shrimp Artemia, 3. Belgium: Univer-sal Press, 393-405.

Treece, G. D. 2000. “Artemia Production for Marine Larval Fish Culture.” Stoneville, Mississippi: Southern Regional Aquaculture Center (SRAC) 702: 1-8.

Sato, N. L. 1967. “Enzymatic Contribution to the Encystment of Artemia salina.” Sci. Rep. Tohoku Univ. 33: 319-327.

Sorgeloos, P., and Van, Stappen, G. 2014. “Impact of Brine Acidification on Hatchability, Survival and Reproduction of Artemia parthenogenetica and Artemia franciscana in Salt Ponds, Bohai Bay, China.” Chinese Journal of Oceanology and Limnology 32 (1): 81-87.

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