Sea Monkeys

[Justin Cyder]

I bought my little girl on e of these cheapy sea monkey sets for Christmas & we hatched them successfully - her in delight, me in the expectation they'd all be dead by January & we could move on to the next fad.

However, the little blighters have prospered, in fact not only prospered but multiplied & in truth, we enjoy having them around the place.

Now, we don't have anything other than the plastic container they arrived in & in the last two weeks, the water has turned bright green & frankly impervious to light.

I've tried sieving it through a coffee filter with limited success, but what can I do, if anything to return the water to a reasonable degree of cleanliness, short of running the tap & I imagine, killing them all in the process?

[Jasandjules]

You could go get some RO water from your local marine fish store? And take them half of your "sea monkeys" because they might have some mandarins who would enjoy them.....

[Justin Cyder]

I wish I understood the gist of that J&J

[Jasandjules]

Sea Monkeys are copepods. Little creatures that fish called Mandarins eat ( I used to breed them on my windowsills to feed the fish - but I would pour half the coke bottle into the tank then use tank water to top the bottle back up ). The RO water is reverse osmosis, it is pure water (99% of the crap that is in water purified out) so they can breed more.

What water did you use to start with? Just tap? You could simply pour a load of them into a coke bottle and top it and the tank up with tap water. Just add it in slowly.

[Justin Cyder]

Tap with some kind of saline/purification powder that comes in the kit.


You may be getting a feel by now for my superior grasp of fish husbandry and stuff.

[Turn7]

Tap water normally contains either chlorine or chloramine,both of which are harmfully to aquatic life.

You can buy products to reduce the problem, such as Seachem Prime.

Change the water in tank with tapwater and add correct quantity to make it safe.

This works for fish. I have no knowledge whatsoever of aquatic primates I'm afraid.

Edited by Turn7 on Tuesday 30th July 21:47

[Justin Cyder]

I have used mineral water to top up the evaporation on the basis that it ha no chlorine - doesn't seem to have done any harm.

[Turn7]

That'll work, but could get expensive.....

[evilmunkey]

distilled water works too, we used it with sea monkeys and they were fine. a gallon at the local motosave was about 3 quid. If you like the monkeys have you tried triops ? they are wierd and very cool. look like a miniature horseshoe crab.

[Jasandjules]

Justin Cyder said:

I have used mineral water to top up the evaporation on the basis that it ha no chlorine - doesn't seem to have done any harm.

Just boil some water and let it cool down. Or get RO from a local fish store (should be 50p a gallon or so).

[Justin Cyder]

Great. Thanks for the advice.

[DannyScene]

evilmunkey said:

distilled water works too, we used it with sea monkeys and they were fine. a gallon at the local motosave was about 3 quid. If you like the monkeys have you tried triops ? they are wierd and very cool. look like a miniature horseshoe crab.

I have sea monkeys on my desk at work and triops at home, currently a mix of standard, black and red ones, they get pretty damn big

[axgizmo]

evilmunkey said:

have you tried triops?

Baby Triops:


Adult triops:



The Tank: