Sea Monkeys died

[seamonkeylove]

Sorry to post this on here but i can't find any active sea monkey forums, if you can send me the link. I keep my sea monkeys on the fridge. Its at least 27 degrees celcius. I keep getting the cotton ball virus. It has killed most of my adult sea monkeys now...i transfered the remaining ones with the aqua leash but died hours later due to shock. I tried a second tank making sure i sterilised everything. More than 15 hatched but now only three adults remain. Iam scared iam gunna loose them. Do you think that the fridge has too much bacteria dust and hair? I aerate once a day, i feed them only once a week, but there seems to always be algae, do i even need to feed them? Even after 8 days they are still eating and pooping. I really need advice. Or sea monkey medic, which in my opinion, shoud already be included in the purifying packet, its just not enough to just condition the water. I have never had this much trouble getting my sea monkeys to stay alive. My female recently had babies, but her sack is now gone, do they disperse the eggs or do the eggs hatch in her stomach?

 

[Fishfur]

I fear you won't find a Sea Monkey forum, sadly, most people who raise them raise them for fish food. I hope you know Sea Monkey's are actually Brine Shrimp, but they've sold as pets called Sea Monkeys for many decades now. There's a few sites that have info on them. This is a link to one of them, maybe it will help or perhaps direct you to some assistance.

Sea-Monkeys! - Tips & Tricks

The eggs don't hatch in the stomach, they are released from the egg sac. They make two kinds of eggs though. One kind hatches right away, the other kind is called a resting cyst, and they produce these when the water conditions are poor, among other reasons. These are the 'eggs' you get when you buy brine shrimp eggs. The resting cysts can last for many years in the most adverse conditions and still hatch out new brine shrimp when conditions are right. If yours have been unwell, they may have made the resting cysts instead of eggs that will hatch right away. If so, you should see the cysts on the bottom of the tank.. they'll look just like Sea Monkey eggs before you hatch them. Good luck.

 

[seamonkeylove]

Thanks for the info. Since this post was made a hatchling was born, yay! Don't know how. Most of the sea monkey websites do not give good advice. After following the advice on a variety of sea monkey websites they all died. So that begs the questions, how do most people raise the brine shrimp for feed? Course iam not raising them for feed but yea, how much would it cost roughly to get some brine shrimps growing?

 

[Fishfur]

Congrats on the hatchling.

There's a site called Brine Shrimp Direct. So far as I know they are reputable and sell good quality cysts and equipment to hatch them, among other things. If you buy cysts and hatch them yourself, you will at least have replacement pets. I don't know how long a brine shrimp lives, but you could ask them, they might know. Conditions that favour maximum hatching success will also likely favour long term survival. Brine shrimp live natively in highly saline waters, like the Great Salt Lake, for example, in Utah, and cysts have been harvested from sources like it for a long, long time.

In fact, they've been harvested so much that the price has gone up substantially. Brine shrimp used to be the main food used to raise larval shrimp and fish in farmed ponds, but have been pretty much replaced by other foods like moina and artificial foods. But they are certainly still widely available, just not as cheaply as before. Hobby fish keepers and some smaller size breeders still hatch their own brine shrimp, because baby brine shrimp, often abbreviated to BBS, have the greatest nutrient value for baby fish, etc. A few fish stores sell live brine shrimp, adults, which make a nice treat for fish but have less nutrient value, but they're live and that's always good for fish that like to hunt. Enrichment, you might say, like spraying perfume here and there in outside enclosures for tigers in the zoo so they'll 'hunt' the scent and get some exercise.

Anyway, there are a number of online sources where you can buy cysts and hatching devices, or you can make your own. Local fish stores will most liley have packages of brine shrimp cysts you can buy too, but it's difficult to gauge how good quality they may be. Though they last a long time, good online sellers usually give you a fair idea what the hatching percentage will be. I"m sure there are YouTube vids on how to build your own hatchery too.

Good luck.

 

[wildroseofky]

I kept sea monkeys for years. I set mine in the window. One without direct light. The fridge is not a good place to keep them. The brine shrimp sold as sea monkeys have been bio engineered to be larger than normal brine shrimp. They breed in three different ways. They carry the eggs until they hatch, they drop the eggs and they hatch on the bottom, or some will not hatch until the tank dries out and it is reflooded. Here are some more websites
Sea-Monkeys - Sea Monkeys | What is a Sea Monkey? and Sea Monkey Worship Here is another site that sells something similar to sea monkeys. Meet The Critters! - Instant Sea O Wonder's. It seems like in the last few years the sea monkeys have really declined. Most due not hatch. Probably because they sit on the shelf for so long.

Their are entire clubs devoted to them on the internet.