ARTEMIA SALINA - BRINE SHRIMP - URZEITKREBSE - SEA MONKEYS

ARTEMIA SALINA BLOG

Ken Boucher writes:
[...]
Second, Feeding your sea monkeys is relative. Each of us has
different tanks, temperatures and mouths to feed. So to say "feed them
once a week" is irresponsible. The Official Sea Monkey Handbook says
on page 10 to feed them about once a week, but on page 4 it tells you
to ignore page 10 and feed them every third day. Not everyone has an
Ocean Zoo (our group owner has a 2 gallon set up), and NO ONE has the
same number of sea monkeys, not everyone lives in 76 degrees F
surroundings and the list goes on. The one constant that everyone
shares is this, if the water's clear, it's safe to feed them. If it's
cloudy, wait till it clears. Not rocket science or even a great
mystery. If everyone fed using that principle, overfeeding wouldn't
happen and the bateria growth threat would be greatly diminished.

Third, when the water levels drop in your tank, use bottled water only
(if available) to refill your tank. Boiling tap water removes the
chlorine from water but not the other trace elements like: lead, rust
(iron), sand, pesticides and so on. Bottled water is the safest route
to go. If you live in an area with really good air quality, even
collected rain water would work. Adding more salt to the tank is not
recommended, they have the correct level of salt to live already and
more in this case is not better. Adding salt to water only comes into
play when a larger environment (bigger than 10 ounces) is desired.

Happy Sea Monkeying! Ken

My reply:

Ken Boucher wrote:
[...]
> Second, Feeding your sea monkeys is relative.

IMO most tanks fail because of overfeeding. Even if the water
is clear (to the human eye) there are still lots of microscopic
algae in the water, which are edible by the Artemia.
One golden rule:
If in doubt whether you should feed or not, do *not* feed.
Only if the water is crystal clear and you feel good about
adding some more algae, feed.

Ken Boucher wrote:
> Hello Hannes,  Your links provide a great deal of information and 
> some exceptional photos.  The thing to remember about sea monkeys is 
> the simplicity. "So easy a child could do it" is the marketing 
> slogan.  The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys company also provides colorful 
> and cute sets to house and transport them.  Most kids don't have the 
> patience or ability as you do to create their pets from "scratch".  
> You've clearly done an impressive amount of research on the subject, 
> which most older fans (like me) certainly appreciate.  Thanks.

Hi Ken!

Thanks for your kind words!
I know that the "aquaculture way" is probably not for kids to
try first, but as we all get older (I turned 30 this year :-)
we expand our interests and also the depth of interest.
One reason why I'm doing my pages is to inspire other folks,
no matter what age, to do more research. So maybe the one or
other kid on this list is someday remembering my pages, and
telling younger ones "back then this Austrian yodeling guy
had some nice page, where I got more interest in this matter
and I did some further research and learned a lot".

Furthermore, being a scientist myself in various research
fields, I love to do research myself.
Hence I was visiting the Salina di Cervia in Italy recently,
to see the first Artemia in native environment:
http://www.captain.at/artemia-salina-di-cervia.php

As you say "cute sets to house and transport them", I also
like to point out that the company selling this stuff, is
commercially orientated, therefore they might not always
tell the 100% truth to sell their stuff.
As I point out at
http://www.captain.at/artemia-nyos-sea-monkeys.php
the "instant life" thing is just a marketing gag - the
Artemia do not hatch instantly.
Also the water purifier is not really necessary.

I think it's important to point out that things to
avoid urband legends, as there are many in the
field of Artemia.

The instructions for the Artemia stuff I bought today
say that plain tap water is OK. But caveat emptor, the
tap water in Europe is pretty clean and most of the
times low in chlorine. So if one uses tap water, let
it rest for 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate.

I'm currently in the process to write up some summary
of a scientific book about Artemia. This will take
some time, but I bet it will be the most complete
fact sheet about Artemia (Sea Monkeys) on the web.
Stay tuned :-)

Thanks for your reply and best regards,
Hannes.