Use of Artemia in Aquaculture in Bangladesh

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Use of Artemia in Aquaculture in Bangladesh
Introduction
Artemia, 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 Artemia
Artemia 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: Artemia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Higher classification: Artemiidae
Order: Anostraca
Species: 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 Quality
The 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 aquaculture
Regardless 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 Cysts
The 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 organism
Artemia 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 hatchery
Since 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 Bangladesh
Artemia 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 Culture
The 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 crashing
There 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 Bangladesh
Most 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 Overcome
Performing 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 Bangladesh
At 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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Conclusion
Brine 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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