Brine Shrimp, Anyone? {Science Fair}

BY WILL

I was excited to see what brine shrimp look like as eggs, which is the reason I chose this project. As walked into PetSmart, I made a beeline to the animals and started looking. Shortly after that, my Aunt Di Di (formerly a school science teacher who helped us with this science project), put her hand on my shoulder and steered me away to go find someone to help us.

We found someone, and then we were disappointed. They only had brine shrimp adults and even then, they were pet treats. So we left with a quart of Aquarium Salt. 

But, when in doubt, check Amazon. Amazingly, they had brine shrimp eggs. They got here a couple days later.

We put the aquarium salt and distilled water along with the brine shrimp eggs into three jars. The first had half a teaspoon of salt, the next had one teaspoon of salt and the third had two teaspoons of salt. 

Now all we had to do was wait three days and stir the water gently every couple of hours. It was a little boring, but I survived. After waiting and waiting, we finally took a sample.

Whaddya know, it was fun to watch minuscule shrimp hatch right under the microscope. In the first jar, there were no signs of activity. In the second jar, it was a different story. There were six eggs showing signs of life. But the most exciting was the third sample. It had eleven eggs starting to hatch, and unnaturally, they clumped together in groups of 2, 3, 6 and 10 eggs in a bunch surrounded by a little wall.

It was awesome to watch the shrimp. I currently have all three containers and some extra eggs. If anyone wants them, I'll mail them to you. I'm going to keep the third container and release the other shrimp to the ocean.