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Saturday, April 5, 2008

«Sea-Monkey Tank Cleaning»

I finally cleaned my sea-monkey tank today. When I say tank, I mean the plastic cashew container I've got them in. There was a lot of excess algae growing and floating to the top. You want some in there, it provides food and oxygen for them. I pulled some of that out with a paper clip, and used a toothbrush to clean the sides of the tank. The water is murky right now because I stirred everything up, but it should clear. I think I've did this cleaning twice before.

Looks like there's still a few of those things alive in there. I've had them for years. I'm not sure on the exact time, but I'd say 10 years or so... I've never had to repopulate the tank. The lifespan of a sea-monkey is 3 months at most, but they reproduce.

A sea-monkey is just a little brine shrimp, about ¼ - ½ inch long. When they hatch, they're hardly big enough to see at all, smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. They just swim around in circles, nothing too exciting.

Totally unrelated, here's a cat for Caturday:

skeleton cat
Photoshopped? Definitely. But still cool looking.

14 comments:

  1. Ahhh Haaa, now I know Sea Monkeys. You've cleaned it twice in 10 years ? They have probably mutated by now, which I'm sure you love.

    Off topic - How often to you hit the main Blogger page after posting ? Doodle Page is on there all the time, What Can't was on there today but Escape Hatch has NEVER been up... weird huh ?

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  2. This is just 'cuz I forgot to click the "email me". I tend to forget where I've been and what I've said, so I need to start using the handy little thing.

    You may see this repeated on a few of your posts, I'll apologize once and then go on repeating myself....

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  3. I don't know that I've checked the blogger main page... not even completely sure where you're talking about.

    And I should use that email notification thing more often as well. I usually have only my own blog's comments set to email me.

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  4. Yeah, I'm now sold on the email thingy. I just forget to click on it and then can't find where I was when I got chatty....

    There is a little ticker on Blogger's main page that shows pages updated in that minute, 2 of mine are constantly on there but Escape never has been, just wondering why.

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  5. I see "blogs of note" but no recently updated. Although I'm automatically logged in when I go to blogger.

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  6. Yep, sign out to see the main page.

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  7. hey marf,

    I found a pic of your sea monkeys through google on your old blog.

    i would love to hear more about your sea monkeys. I am interested in tanks of critters that don't need feeding and very little maintenance, kind of a stable tabletop ecosystem. I have kept a single guppy in a jar for long periods of time with no feeding or cleaning. They just graze algae off the sides and rocks and plastic plants.

    What temperature are they at? Do they get sun? Do you do water changes or just fill it up? Have you moved them from place to place?

    What tips would you give to a person who wanted to grow a 10 year old colony of seamonkeys?

    Peace,

    Webdoc

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  8. @ techwiz: And here I was going to wait until May 16th to talk about Seamonkys again. You ask a few too many questions to be answered in the comments, so I'll just have to do another blog post about them. (There seems to be a strange interest from my readers about them)

    Let's see here, today (April 11) I planed to do another post on my musical taste. Tomorrow is Caturday... How about Sunday? Keep an eye out for the post.

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  9. My son has sea monkeys and they are only about 3 weeks old. I accidentally punctured the side of the plastic tank in which they came with. I transferred them into a glass jar. Before I moved them they were swimming all around but now I'm afraid they are dying because they are just kind of squirming around the bottom of the jar. I added a little water but it was bottled water. Do you think the transfer beat them up? I just poured them in. Might have not been such a good idea. Please help if you can. My poor son just had two of his fish to die and he didn't take it well. He loves his sea monkeys and will be heart broken if they die too. Thank you!

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  10. @ Kathryn: No, pouring them into a different container isn't going to hurt them. Pouring between containers is one way to oxygenate their water.

    However, it sounds like you lost some of the salts and minerals that should be in their water. They are brine shrimp, so they require a concentration of salts to survive. Just replacing what was lost with regular water is going to dilute their salts. Unfortunately, it's not just regular table salt in their water, so it's not easy to replace.

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  11. A sea-monkey is just a little brine shrimp, about ¼ - ½ inch long. When they hatch, they're hardly big enough to see at all, smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. They just swim around in circles, nothing too exciting.Pressure Washer Judges

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  12. Ahh, Richard, you poor fool who let your account get hacked.

    Hiya Marf, how are you and sea monkeys doing?

    I subscribed to these comments years ago, and when the unfortunate Mr Lambert posted the comment, I got an email. I thought I might as well say hello.

    I don't have salamanders any more... I have chickens now. They are interesting animals. So curious. Much friendlier than I thought they would be.

    So what are you up to? What games are you playing these days? My daughter and I have been playing SWTOR lately and enjoying the stories.

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  13. I usually delete comments like that, but since you made note of it I'll leave it.

    I don't have sea monkeys anymore. Now I've just got a couple plants. A cataractarum palm, little cactus, jalapeno, and a green grape tomato.

    I've just been working and minding my own business. I work as a janitor in government buildings where I need clearance for. Nothing too exciting, just FAA and Dept. of the Interior.

    I've been playing a lot of Kerbal Space Program. It's currently my favorite game (and has been for a while).

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