For the user of Artemia cysts several techniques have proven successful in terminating
diapause. It is important to note here that the sensitivity of Artemia cysts to these techniques
shows strain- or even batch-specificity, hence the difficulty to predict the effect on hatching
outcome. When working with new or relatively unknown strains, the relative success or
failure of certain methods has to be found out empirically.
In many cases the removal of cyst water is an efficient way to terminate the state of
diapause. This can be achieved by drying the cysts at temperatures not exceeding 35-4°C
or by suspending the cysts in a saturated NaCl brine solution (300 g.l-1). As some form of
dehydration is part of most processing and/or storage procedures, diapause termination
does not require any particular extra manipulation. Nevertheless, with some strains of
Artemia cysts the usual cyst processing techniques does not yield a sufficiently high hatching
quality, indicating that a more specific diapause deactivation method is necessary.