Sea monkey help!

[Kristieg]

Hi I'm hoping it's ok to post this here!
I am in need of some help. My 4 year old daughter got a small sea monkey kit for christmas and she was very excited to start hatching them. However within a few weeks they started dying and i realised there were a few small white dots floating around. After reading up about it I found that if untreated the sea monkeys would die. I have looked everywhere to purchase a sea medic but it seems that as i am from the UK I cannot get one.
I bought another little kit to transfer the remaining living sea monkeys over to it and hatched the other eggs also. After a while the tank was swimming with them and it made my little girl a lot happier. However today I checked on them and there was a lot less. After close inspection I saw dead ones floating on the bottom as I had done before and white floaty bits.
I keep up with the oxygen in the tank daily and feed them every 5 days as instructed so I am unable to see what i am doing wrong. Is there any chance you can help please? If I could get hold of a sea medic sachet somehow then i feel like the issue would be solved but then i don't know how to stop it from happening again!
Please help. Thank you for reading

Kristie

 

[Aquarium guy person]

From what I know they don’t live very long, in the hobby a many people use them as feeders for other fish, but when I had them as a kid they had cycles of life and I had them for a year before the little bribe shrimp tank tipped over. Did you follow the instructions by dechlorinating the water and adding the salt it came with? Have you been feeding them?

 

[JuiceBox52]

Was your water de-chlorinated?
My suggestion would be buy a 5 gallon tank, cycle it and buy some ghost shrimp for her. Brine shrimp (sea monkeys) dont live very long.

 

[Colin_T]

Sea Monkeys are a species of Artemia (commonly called Brineshrimp). You can buy live brineshrimp from most pet shops. They live in salt water and can be fed on algae or yeast. If you use yeast, you need to keep the feeding down to once every few days and only put in a small amount because the water quality can go off very quickly. If this happens, the Artemia die.

A small air operated sponge filter can help keep the water cleaner when it has developed the colonies of beneficial filter bacteria. However, it will take around 4-6 weeks for the filter to become established.

If you have a light above their tank, leave it on for 16 hours a day to encourage algae to grow on the glass. Then use a clean soap free sponge to wipe the algae off the glass and squeeze it into the tank water. The Artemia can eat the free floating algae. They will also graze on the algae that is on the glass.

Under good conditions, the baby shrimp can reach maturity in 3-4 weeks and start producing eggs. The small brown eggs need to be taken out of the tank and dried for a few weeks, before being hatched in a clean container of salt water. The eggs can be frozen for many years, and will survive in the fridge for more than 12 months. So if you get a surplus of eggs, dry them and put them in a ziplock bag and freeze them until you need them.

----------------
The following link has information on culturing green water and infusoria, which can be fed to the Artemia. If you do culture these foods, do it in the same strength salt water as the shrimp are kept in otherwise the algae and infusoria will die if there is a major change in salinity.

You can use sea salt, rock salt or swimming pool salt for the brineshrimp and culturing the green water and infusoria. If you live near a clean beach, you can collect sea water from the ocean and use that instead of making up salt water.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

 

[JuiceBox52]

Sea Monkeys are a species of Artemia (commonly called Brineshrimp). You can buy live brineshrimp from most pet shops. They live in salt water and can be fed on algae or yeast. If you use yeast, you need to keep the feeding down to once every few days and only put in a small amount because the water quality can go off very quickly. If this happens, the Artemia die.

A small air operated sponge filter can help keep the water cleaner when it has developed the colonies of beneficial filter bacteria. However, it will take around 4-6 weeks for the filter to become established.

If you have a light above their tank, leave it on for 16 hours a day to encourage algae to grow on the glass. Then use a clean soap free sponge to wipe the algae off the glass and squeeze it into the tank water. The Artemia can eat the free floating algae. They will also graze on the algae that is on the glass.

Under good conditions, the baby shrimp can reach maturity in 3-4 weeks and start producing eggs. The small brown eggs need to be taken out of the tank and dried for a few weeks, before being hatched in a clean container of salt water. The eggs can be frozen for many years, and will survive in the fridge for more than 12 months. So if you get a surplus of eggs, dry them and put them in a ziplock bag and freeze them until you need them.

----------------
The following link has information on culturing green water and infusoria, which can be fed to the Artemia. If you do culture these foods, do it in the same strength salt water as the shrimp are kept in otherwise the algae and infusoria will die if there is a major change in salinity.

You can use sea salt, rock salt or swimming pool salt for the brineshrimp and culturing the green water and infusoria. If you live near a clean beach, you can collect sea water from the ocean and use that instead of making up salt water.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

Informative as always

 

[Kristieg]

From what I know they don’t live very long, in the hobby a many people use them as feeders for other fish, but when I had them as a kid they had cycles of life and I had them for a year before the little bribe shrimp tank tipped over. Did you follow the instructions by dechlorinating the water and adding the salt it came with? Have you been feeding them?

I read that they don't live long but I remember my brother having them when we were kids and they lasted years. I followed the instructions that came with the kit and used the purifier. I read up about feeding them because the instructions that came with it weren't very clear and it said to feed them every 5 days which is what me and my daughter are doing.

 

[Kristieg]

Was your water de-chlorinated?
My suggestion would be buy a 5 gallon tank, cycle it and buy some ghost shrimp for her. Brine shrimp (sea monkeys) dont live very long.

It was yea I followed the instructions to the letter when I set it up for her. My other half has recently been given a large fish tank so we plan on getting our girls a few tropical fish each to go in there and abandon the sea monkey idea.

 

[Kristieg]

Sea Monkeys are a species of Artemia (commonly called Brineshrimp). You can buy live brineshrimp from most pet shops. They live in salt water and can be fed on algae or yeast. If you use yeast, you need to keep the feeding down to once every few days and only put in a small amount because the water quality can go off very quickly. If this happens, the Artemia die.

A small air operated sponge filter can help keep the water cleaner when it has developed the colonies of beneficial filter bacteria. However, it will take around 4-6 weeks for the filter to become established.

If you have a light above their tank, leave it on for 16 hours a day to encourage algae to grow on the glass. Then use a clean soap free sponge to wipe the algae off the glass and squeeze it into the tank water. The Artemia can eat the free floating algae. They will also graze on the algae that is on the glass.

Under good conditions, the baby shrimp can reach maturity in 3-4 weeks and start producing eggs. The small brown eggs need to be taken out of the tank and dried for a few weeks, before being hatched in a clean container of salt water. The eggs can be frozen for many years, and will survive in the fridge for more than 12 months. So if you get a surplus of eggs, dry them and put them in a ziplock bag and freeze them until you need them.

----------------
The following link has information on culturing green water and infusoria, which can be fed to the Artemia. If you do culture these foods, do it in the same strength salt water as the shrimp are kept in otherwise the algae and infusoria will die if there is a major change in salinity.

You can use sea salt, rock salt or swimming pool salt for the brineshrimp and culturing the green water and infusoria. If you live near a clean beach, you can collect sea water from the ocean and use that instead of making up salt water.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

Thank you so much for the advice. I think one of the main problems is that they are not getting enough light. It's just a tiny tank they have and I currently dont have enough money to buy even a lamp to shine over them. The room they're in is probably the darkest in the house. I thought about moving them to a window sill but I read that they shouldn't be in direct sunlight and with the weather being as miserably as it has been lately it's rather cold by the windows in the house. I will move them anyway and see what difference it will make.
I've also been given a large fish tank so me and my other half are planning on filling it with tropical fish just in case we need to abandon the sea monkeys altogether.

 

[Colin_T]

You could try culturing Daphnia, cyclops (copepods) or Rotifers instead. They live in freshwater and have live babies as well as producing egg sacks that can survive drying out. The link I put in post #4 tells you how to culture them.

They make great food for fish and interesting things to keep in small tanks.

You can culture them outdoors in plastic tubs, just make sure the children can't get to them and fall in.

 

[Kristieg]

You could try culturing Daphnia, cyclops (copepods) or Rotifers instead. They live in freshwater and have live babies as well as producing egg sacks that can survive drying out. The link I put in post #4 tells you how to culture them.

They make great food for fish and interesting things to keep in small tanks.

You can culture them outdoors in plastic tubs, just make sure the children can't get to them and fall in.

Are they tropical fish? I'm new to this whole fish thing so not sure haha. The main problem at the moment is money as it's only my partner working currently.
Regarding the sea monkeys, have you any advice how I can transfer the remaining ones into a new tank without having to pay out for a new set up kit? I know the water needs to be purified but I've looked online and cant find a way to set it all up without buying the proper sachets. Is it just salt water they need to survive?

 

[Colin_T]

Daphnia is a small fresh water crustacean that can be collected from freshwater ponds and lakes in winter and spring. They do best in cool water (unheated aquarium indoors is fine for them).

Cyclops and Rotifers are small crustaceans too and are available in salt and fresh water varieties and can be found in ponds or ordered from aquaculture supply stores or places like Ebay. They will survive in cold or warm water. You can Google images of them to see what they look like. They are pretty small tho so don't expect them to be big like a fish.

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You can grow brineshrimp in plastic storage containers with salt water in. You can buy a 10kg bag of swimming pool salt from a swimming pool store or hardware and use that to make up the salt water.

Get a hydrometer from a pet shop or online and use that to measure the salinity (salt level) in the water. Plastic chamber hydrometers are more accurate than floating glass hydrometers, but they cost a bit more (about $10-20). The glass ones usually break too.

Get some dechlorinator from a pet shop and use it to remove the chlorine/ chloramine from the container of tap water. Add some salt and aerate the mixture for at least 24 hours before adding the brineshrimp.

Each week you make up a few buckets of salt water (dechlorinator and then salt) and let them aerate for 24 hours. Then use them to do a 50-75% water change on the brineshrimp tank.