SeaMonkeyMan's Care Blog!

The 'Care Free' Project: The Final Check Up

SeaMonkeyMan — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:31:00 GMT

So, they all finally died off yesterday. The tank lasted a little over a month. I guess I'll have to go back to following directions for a while. I'm now going to be putting more energy into perfecting my brine shrimp formula so that I can finally get it to where I want it to be. I will post any results at a later date.

The 'Care Free' Project: Check Up Two

SeaMonkeyMan — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:02:00 GMT

Everything seems to be pretty good so far. The only thing I'm upset with right now is the fact that they are ALL boys! I don't understand why lately but all of my Sea Monkeys and Brine shrimp have been males. So much for births! I skipped last feeding day because their bellies were full. I'll probably feed them some time tonight. I'm also considering starting a one-gallon tank, but I have to restock my Sea Monkey Products.

Next Time: The 'Care Free' Project: Check Up Three

The 'Care Free' Project: Check Up One

SeaMonkeyMan — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 04:47:00 GMT

So far so good! I've fed them yesterday and stirred the food in as I did last feeding method. I have NOT aerated at all since the last time and they seem to be doing fine. They are coming up for air, and have a normal color (not red as most oxygen deprived monkeys are). Unfortunately, the Brine Shrimp have once again all died. (Boy they are difficult to deal with.) I believe my mistake there was the fact that I was also not aerating them. Since they grow slower, they had not reached the stage at which they would come up for air on their own, so I now know that they must be aerated equally as much. By survival of the fittest, there are about eight adults left and maybe four or five babies. No sign of egg sacks just yet.

Next Time: The 'Care Free' Project: Check Up Two

The 'Care Free' Project: Feeding Day!

SeaMonkeyMan — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:41:00 GMT

In looking at the tanks, the Sea Monkeys are thriving, and all of the brine shrimp have died. This is because I didn't use any agents that I usually use in a brine shrimp tank. I used regular non-iodized salt, and by looking at the container, I see that it has absorbic acid in it, so they didn't like that very much. I've restarted that tank and this time I used authentic Sea Salt and Baking Soda like I normally would do. This time I left the Epsom salts out, so we'll see how that goes.

Feeding Method
Today, I added a scoup of food on the top of the water and let it sit there for about 30 minutes as the Sea Monkey swam around collecting particles. Then, I mixed it all in and aerated. From this point on, I'm slowly starting to taper off on the aeration. They are currently frollicking along happily, and yesterday I didn't aerate them at all. They have gotten accostomed to coming up for air now since they are a little older, but I see new babies, so I'm not going to turn it off for good just yet.

Next Time: The 'Care Free' Project: Check Up One

The 'Care Free' Project: Prosperous?

SeaMonkeyMan — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 22:05:00 GMT

Pretty good! It seems that the same amount of monkeys are here from Day one, so that's good. Also, I failed to mention in my last post, I am also running a Brine Shrimp (MagiQuarium) tank next to this one that I started on the same day. Right now they are both doing equally. I am only aerating once a day, and they are getting indirect sunlight. In the Ghostly Galleon, the early signs of algae are starting to appear. More to come later, so far so good!

Next Time: The 'Care Free' Project: Feeding Day!

The 'Care Free' Project: Days One and Two

SeaMonkeyMan — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 23:18:00 GMT

As many of you know, I've decided to try something new. I was introduced to Sea Monkeys in the early 90s as a kid, and I remember not having to do much at all to take care of them. They were sitting on my bookshelf, I NEVER aerated them (aeration wasn't even discussed then, not even in the instructions) and I had a colony for a little over 2 years! It could have been longer, but my little sister poured them out -_-.

So, to bring back that time, I am doing the same thing again to test the results. I will only aerate them for the first few days (babies need the air) using a pipet, and after that, the pipet goes into the drawer! I will feed them the traditional way by just adding the scoup on top of the water, but I will stir it in to make sure that they are getting the food. As far as light goes, they will be on my dresser near the window, but they will be receiving shaded light. I remember my old room as a kid didn't get much light, and the Sea Monkeys were sitting in between books and algae grew just fine (probably why aeration wasn't needed).

I'm using the Ghostly Galleon (love it because it's great for algae growth) and yesterday was Day One where I added the purifier. Today marks Day Two and I've added the egg packet. Of course there are babies swimming around at the moment due to the Purfier Packet having eggs. :) Can't count them at the moment but there are a lot. Survival of the fittest will probably move them down a bit by the end of the week. I guess that's all for today, nothing much left to do but wait for the new batch to arrive tomorrow!

Next Time: The 'Care Free' Project: Prosperous?

New Adventure: Growth? Yay or Nay

SeaMonkeyMan — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 20:15:00 GMT

Nay, nay; sad to say. They were actually doing quite excellent, but the algae frowth was MASSIVE, and this is not an exagerration. It was covered in the green stuff, and on top of that I *crazily* fed them. They had formed into their second stage (post-napulli) but they died soon after. It seems the constant aeration did not constrict the algae growth at all, in fact it was the most algae I've ever had... :(

Next Time: The 'Care Free' Project

New Adventure: Did They Hatch?

SeaMonkeyMan — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 04:42:00 GMT

Looked in the tank earlier today and they live! They hatched in 17 hours or less! Pretty good, and it seems the stress coat and constant aeration is helping. I've decided to constrict the air a little more during the day, and let it run almost full blast at night. This will make sure they are supplied well since it's a bigger tank. I've also added a little more food today. Since the tank is bigger, and there are more brine shrimp they need to be fed pretty often. Also, they can start to eat 12 hours after birth, so I need to keep food handy. I'll be posting more over the next few days as they grow more.

Next Time: Growth? Yay or Nay

A New Adventure!

SeaMonkeyMan — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 03:53:00 GMT

So, I took a little break from Sea Monkeys, now it's time to get back in the game! Well sort of. I just started a new 1 gallon tank of Brine Shrimp. This time, I'm using an air stone for constant *restricted* aeration. I'm short of baking soda, so this is the formula I've used:

1.5 ml Stress Coat (All I have is tap water right now, so this will de-chlorinate the water. Usually you'd use 2 ml but I didn't want to add too much.)
6 tbsp. Sea Salt
2 tsp. Epsom Salt
1 small scoup of Growth Food
1 pinch of eggs.

Now, usually you'd want to use 8 tbsp. of Sea Salt per gallon, but I'm taking a lower salinity approach. This way I can end up with more pregnant females, and the adults should live longer. this yelds a salinity of 1.017. I figure I have all of these eggs, so I may as well experiment a little. :) Though the salinity is a little low for babies, as they grow, they should be more tolerant. The females will hopefully have more live births (if the experiment makes it that far.) Basically all I have to do is sit and watch since I have an air stone. I also added six or seven pieces of gravel to the bottom of the tank just so algae can have a bit of a medium to grow on, but the algae won't take over.

I'll post back tomorrow and hopefully they will have hatched!

Next Time: Did They Hatch?

Super Sleuth: An End

SeaMonkeyMan — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:01:00 GMT

Just as I expected, the babies did not make it through the night. This tank is over. I'm going to take a break from them for a while, but I may play with the Robo Diver next.

Super Sleuth: Death and Rebirth

SeaMonkeyMan — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:02:00 GMT

It seems the new water change deemed well for a few days, but today I looked into the tank to find that they had all died. BUT, mysteriously, there are babies all of a sudden! I must have managed to carry some eggs over during the change because I didn't notice any pregnant adults. So, what this means with respect to my water change was that I had too much salt for the adults, but just enough to hatch babies! (I knew it was a mistake adding that Plasma!!!) I guess now I have to just wait and see how long this will last. Usually new babies do not survive my colonies well, but with a new water formula, who knows!

Super Sleuth: A Quick Save?

SeaMonkeyMan — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:34:00 GMT

Today I looked on the top of my tank and noticed the white bacteria/fungus! Oh no, not another tank! After noticing that one Sea Monkey was dead, I knew I had to do something. I did a complete water change. I used 3/4 tbsp. Sea Salt and 1.5 scoops Plasma III. Because I cleaned the tank, it also got rid of the natural algae growth, so I fed them, and hopefully new algae growth will appear over the next few days. It seems that they are doing okay as it has been about 8 hours since the change and they are swimming around fine. :D

I did notice a sign, which you should all consider. My live algae had turned brown. This could be a sign that the algae died due to fungus. I'm not so sure on this theory yet, but in the future I will look further into it.

I'll keep you guys posted! [ I hope they live through the night! :( ]

Sea Monkeys Mini-World: Hang 10: A Disaster

SeaMonkeyMan — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:00:00 GMT

Horrible news. My entire Hang 10 colony has been destroyed. Cause of Death: Fungus/Foreign Objects.

I looked into my aquarium and noticed that there was a fruit fly on top of the water! Around the fly, there was a very thick layer of a white mossy fungus (yuck!) I was very upset because this colony was doing so great! The Hang 10 set has too many air holes which allows any thing to get into it (including dust).

Luckily, the SuperSleuth aquarium is swarming with Sea Monkeys. I also have the Search Light on top, so there is only enough holes for them to get air and to keep foreign objects out. This is okay because I aerate them anyway. Hopefully this colony will last longer. ^_^

Sea Monkeys Mini-World: Hang 10 / Super Sleuth

SeaMonkeyMan — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:25:00 GMT

Long time no update! Well to get you guys caught up, here is a little reminder of where we left off. I started a Hang 10 Aquarium by adding the frist two packets at the SAME time. Things were going great! Well, good news; they still are! Of course some of them have died by natural selection, but the more fit few are still swarming around. I also have NOT touched an aerator ONCE!!! I've only been using a plastic spoon and scooping the water out and letting it fall back into the container. I've also been feeding them with the new feeding method (shaking the food in a container) and because of great algae growth, I have not fed them for almost 2 weeks. Their bodies just never seem to get empty!

Just recently (last Thursday) I have started the new "Super Sleuth" kit using the same methods since they have been so successful! I noticed the very next day that the convienient Sea Monkey statue in the bottom of the tank was already becoming loaded with algae, so there is already another food/oxygen source in the tank. This was convienient because I went out of town this weekend, and they are just babies. When they are babies, you must aerate them a lot, but since I had algae growth, they were fine two days without aeration. They are getting big and are dancing around the tank. I'm noticing the water level in my Hang 10 tank is getting low, so I may add these Sea- Monkeys into the Super Sleuth Tank later, but I don't want to mess things up because they are going so well! :) For those of you who haven't seen the new set, here is a picture:

It's basically the Ocean Zoo, with a glow in the dark Statue of a Sea Monkey in the middle. They have also upgraded the magnifiers, so they are slightly better. Unfortunately, the old convention of filling it to the top edge of the top most magnifier no longer works here.

Ok, that's all for today! I hate to break the rules, but I will be adding both packets from the start from now on!

Sea Monkeys Mini-World: Hang 10 Day Eight!

SeaMonkeyMan — Tue, 16 May 2006 20:51:00 GMT

Things are going superb! These little buggers are getting quite big. I fed them on Day 6 using the new feeding methods of shaking the food up in a bottle with some of the tank water. Pretty soon they should be big enough for pictures! There are at least 20 of them! This is probably one of the most sucessful tanks I've had.

I must say that I will be using Packets 1 and 2 at the same time more often!! ;)