Sea Monkeys: first feeding
Sea Monkey Update: 4/30 @ 11:00am
The sea monkeys are continuing to grow, and swim faster. However it is still hard to take good pictures of them since they are small and I don't have a true macro lens. Hard to imagine that these tiny swimming commas can grow up to half an inch, but that's the miracle of life I suppose. Soeme of them swim in curvy trails from the bottom to the top, sometimes they do little somersaults. I did see one that was stuck in some kind of jerky spasms and not really moving. wah!
Since it is the fourth day of life, I fed the sea monkeys for the first time. Using the tiny scoop and the Growth Food I added one small scoop of green powder to the water. According to the Artemia NYOS FAQ (http://www.captain.at/artemia-nyos-sea-monkeys.php) the food has spirulina algae and yeast. Spirulina is for the adult artemia and yeast is for the baby nauplii since the particles are small enough for them to eat. Microalgae is better for the nauplii since it is their natural food, but they will eat yeast and any other particle deemed edible. Shrimp are very non-picky eaters, and some people feed their brine shrimp a powdered mixture of egg, yeast and fish flakes-- a high protein and fat meal right before feeding the *shrimp* to their pet fish! Most brine shrimp/artemia raise the shrimp not for pets, but for feeding to their more important aquarium fish.
One of the major risks to the sea monkeys is bacteria growth, usually brought about by overfeeding, or too warm a temperature causing an algae bloom. The bacteria eat the excess rotting food or algae and also consume all the oxygen in the water. The only way to fix this is to change the water, aerate the water like crazy, and/or use the mysterious Sea Monkey powder called Sea Medic. Transcience, the Sea Monkey company, is notoriously secretive about what's exactly in all the packets, but somehow the Sea Medic will clear up bacteria in the water.
The sea monkeys are continuing to grow, and swim faster. However it is still hard to take good pictures of them since they are small and I don't have a true macro lens. Hard to imagine that these tiny swimming commas can grow up to half an inch, but that's the miracle of life I suppose. Soeme of them swim in curvy trails from the bottom to the top, sometimes they do little somersaults. I did see one that was stuck in some kind of jerky spasms and not really moving. wah!
Since it is the fourth day of life, I fed the sea monkeys for the first time. Using the tiny scoop and the Growth Food I added one small scoop of green powder to the water. According to the Artemia NYOS FAQ (http://www.captain.at/artemia-nyos-sea-monkeys.php) the food has spirulina algae and yeast. Spirulina is for the adult artemia and yeast is for the baby nauplii since the particles are small enough for them to eat. Microalgae is better for the nauplii since it is their natural food, but they will eat yeast and any other particle deemed edible. Shrimp are very non-picky eaters, and some people feed their brine shrimp a powdered mixture of egg, yeast and fish flakes-- a high protein and fat meal right before feeding the *shrimp* to their pet fish! Most brine shrimp/artemia raise the shrimp not for pets, but for feeding to their more important aquarium fish.
One of the major risks to the sea monkeys is bacteria growth, usually brought about by overfeeding, or too warm a temperature causing an algae bloom. The bacteria eat the excess rotting food or algae and also consume all the oxygen in the water. The only way to fix this is to change the water, aerate the water like crazy, and/or use the mysterious Sea Monkey powder called Sea Medic. Transcience, the Sea Monkey company, is notoriously secretive about what's exactly in all the packets, but somehow the Sea Medic will clear up bacteria in the water.
