The hard shell that encysts the dormant Artemia embryo can be removed by chemical means in a procedure called decapsulation. Decapsulated cysts offer a number of advantages. First, cyst shells are not introduced into the culture tanks. When hatching undecapsulated cysts, the complete separation of Artemia nauplii from their shells is not always possible. Unhatched cysts and empty shells in the larval tanks can cause deleterious effects when they are ingested by the predator. They are not digested and may obstruct the gut. Second, nauplii that hatched out of decapsulated cysts have a higher energy content than regular instar I nauplii because they do not spend energy to break out of the shell. Finally, in some cases where cysts have a very low energy content, the hatchability might be improved again because of the lower energy requirement to break out of a decapsulated cyst (Dhont et al.,1993).

The decapsulation procedure involves the hydration of the cysts, removal of the cyst envelope in a hypochlorite solution, and washing and deactivation of the hypochlorite (Dhont et al.,1993).

The resulting decapsulated cysts can then be fed immediately to shrimp larvae, hatched into nauplii, or dehydrated for storage (Dhont et al.,1993).