We Have Life!

At this point it's reeaaaally hard to tell, with the eggs floating around constantly in the water, but I can tell by the spazzy movements of some of the flecks that some sea monkeys have hatched! There's no way to tell how many...






I'm going to take the advice of the aquarticle on raising "large brine shrimp" and wait 24 hours to feed them. I plan to grind up the spriulina flakes into a fine powder and do as he suggested, wetting the tip of a match (or in my case probably a chopstick or something) and dipping it in the spirulina powder, then swishing it around in the water. He suggests to do this twice a day, but since they are so tiny and I'm not raising a huge crop of them, I think I will do it once a day for now until I can better assess how many there are.

So excited!!!

Meanwhile...

I can't remember or find where I read it now, but I came across the suggestion that if your tank crashes you can let the water completely evaporate and start over again. I don't have any purifier left, but if there are any viable eggs left at the bottom of the tank, it might be worth a try to start it over again. So, that's what I'm doing. It would be pretty neat if I had a tank of brine shrimp and of the Sea Monkey brand sea monkeys going at the same time, to compare them.

Sea Monkeys, Take Two

I've started the tank for the second time!

Here is everything I'm using to raise some brine shrimp:



The same 1.5 gallon tank I had before, some coarse salt, spirulina flakes, and brine shrimp eggs. My tank came with the pump and tubing and I got it used for $15. Altogether, with the tank included, I paid slightly less than $40 for everything. Not as cheap as the original $19 sea monkey kit, but pretty damn cheap to set up an aquarium nonetheless.



The only aquarium salt I found was kind of expensive, so I looked around for some sea salt. Confusingly, the only sea salt I found was iodized. WTF is the point of sea salt if it contains the same things as table salt? As the bag says, this stuff contains no additives, and was only about $3.50. I could have gotten a box of aquarium salt that's about 1/3 or 1/4 of the size of this bag for about the same price, which still isn't terrible, but hopefully it should do the trick.



I got the spirulina flakes based on the fact that sea monkeys apparently live on microalgae, and judging by the blue-green colour of the sea monkey food packets, they contain spirulina. Some sites make it sound like they will eat pretty much anything, though -- yeast is another favourite, and might be cheaper than buying actual fish food.



The all-important brine shrimp eggs. They come in a little glass vial, but I split them with someone so mine are chilling in an empty pill bottle now. They look like fine brown sand and there are MILLIONS in that tiny container. Assuming a high percentage of them are viable, and you aren't raising masses of brine shrimp for fish food, for about $10 that should be all the eggs you ever need.

I am following the instructions on the back of the egg package right now pretty closely, using 2 tbsp of salt per litre of water (I have 5 liters in my tank now). I'm happy to see the water is nice and clear, unlike last time:



However, instead of adding 1 tsp of brine shrimp eggs per litre of water, I just put in a little bit -- I filled the larger side of the spoon that comes with the sea monkey kit:



It's still a ton of eggs. They are supposed to be floating around constantly in motion in the water, but mine are getting stuck in the corners a bit and also just falling to the bottom:



Every once in a while I stir them up again with a spoon. A more vigorous pump to move the water constantly would be better, as well as a tank without corners. If this doesn't work, I might try hatching them in the original sea monkey tank.

Another thing I'm not doing is regulating the temperature or PH levels. The water feels cooler to the touch than the recommended 26-28°C (80-82°F), but I'm not really willing to get a heater at this point, or mess with PH levels. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

So, I put these eggs in water last evening. In optimal conditions it should take 24-36 hours for them to hatch, so maybe tomorrow I'll see signs of life!