In Search of adult brine shrimp
There is a reason it is called the Great Salt Lake. It stretches forever. And because of the salts, the alkalis, and the geography, the land around it is a virtual desert.
I am picturing my bleached bones being found by some intrepid explorer in the future, wondering how a human had found his way this far into the wasteland. They cound have filmed the 'Mad Max' movies here. We travel around the area on what Bob calls roads. I thing of them more as scraped over camel paths. My neck and back may never recover from the hours of bouncing over the flatlands. It was great!
Eventually we find a boat marina. Out in the middle of nowhere and suddenly we are surrounded by all these sailboats. Now that is really strange. It is the beginning of our brine shrimp quest.
But we do find brine shrimp. The little spots in the water are adult brine shrimp. Gobs of them! And we have nets!!!
Bob says it is pretty pathetic catchings, but at the price of my local pet shop portions I have single handedly caught at least $1000 worth of brine shrimp. Bob talks of trips when the shrimp are right and filling a big bucket full of live adult brine shrimp. No water in the bucket, just mountains of shrimp with a ketchup bottle filled with frozen water to keep them alive.
I am overwhelmed at thinking at how much food is available just for the collecting.
In the pictures Bob is moving the net along a dock scooping up the adult brine shrimp. Slow and easy is the way to do it. The adults are certainly not going to swim away from the net.
When the brine shimp eggs are collected, he can sometimes get several pounds of eggs along with several lbs of gunk to separate out of the eggs. Imagine that, take a drive out on Saturday, come back with a years supply of brine shrimp eggs. No wonder there are some huge breeders in this area. Food is so abundant. And the water runs down out the mountains through limestone. It is already hard with lots of calcium carbonate in it. Perfect for Africans. Plus Bob showed me where there is a sand that he uses in his tanks. It is like nothing else I have ever seen before. It is larger than the sand I know and almost squarish. Wonderful stuff and his fish love it. It looks really good in a tank too.
We came back to civilization long enough to have lunch, then we were back out on the salt flats. Later on Bob took me on a quick trip up into the mountains, then dinner and off to the meeting. Showtime for me. I did my video presentation on breeding killiefish. No one fell asleep or threw things at me. I think it went pretty well. Actually it is always a thrill for me to see the reactions of people who have never seen close up video of fish spawnings and fry raising practices. Good stuff. I had also taken out there about a dozen pairs of killies and other fish that I donated to the club and were auctioned off.
I hit the motel room at 11:30 and was in bed at 11:55pm. I have been up 23 hours and 55 minutes. I try to get the maximum out of each day when on a fish trip!