Tuesday 2 November 2010

Ocean monkeys = Sea monkeys?

I've always wanted sea-monkeys since i was a kid. I didn't necessarily know what they were back then but the advertorials in magazines and the sightings in Toys 'r' us ( the packaging was really lovely and as i could read by then, the idea of instant pets was tempting) really piqued my interest. Funnily enough i never made my parents buy them for me as a kid. Probably due to the fact that i could recognize numbers and understood the fact that RM 60++ was quite a big sum to pay for something quite dubious. What? You mean to tell me i put water in a fancy aquarium, dump in 3 sachets and i get instant cartoonish pets as depicted on the box?


Can you blame me?  I mean as a child i expect to get what was depicted on the box. And i expect to get a full family of two-legged sea-monkeys with crowns on their heads.


I want a bowl full of happiness!! I should have known better as a child and just read the small print. (If you can't see it , cos its so small, it says : caricatures shown not intended to depict Artemia salina)


So as an adult and with the all important educational tool (the internet), i found that sea-monkeys were not in fact primates at all but rather a type of brine shrimp, scientifically modified by the makers to create a hybrid that lasts longer and goes by the name of Artemia NYOS.

According to wikipedia :

They are a variant of brine shrimp or Artemia salina, a species which enters cryptobiosis, a natural state of suspended animation, allowing their cysts (dormant saclike embryos) to be distributed and sold as a dry powder. When the "eggs" are poured into saltwater, the Sea-Monkeys start to come out of their cysts.

And they look like this:



Rather cute creatures aren't they? Anyway i only found out all these after i had bought a kit of what i perceived to be sea-monkeys. After extensive study on the internet (che wah) i found that sea-monkeys were not spared from counterfeiting and imitation and i had in fact unwittingly bought for myself the even more dubious sounding "Ocean Monkeys". Just great.

I bought this kit for RM 18 from In a box - One utama. 


One has to be really careful when shopping there. Some of the 'boxes' house fake/overpriced goods. I couldn't believe it when i saw a box selling fake lashes made for Daiso at RM 6.60 when Daiso is just next door. Anyway I'm not saying all their stuff is overpriced, some of the boxes house really cool stuff, just remember to be aware of what you are purchasing.
Anyway so i yeah, bought imitation sea monkeys. The kit consists of an aquarium, water conditioning powder, live eggs and food.



It thankfully also comes with a grammatically acceptable instruction manual.Which makes me think this may not be a product of China.


However, whatever merit garnered in clarity, was countered by the lack of details in instructions.


Note item 2. After i had 'fill the tank with filtered water' i am left scratching my head as to how much water as the amount of water conditioning powder was way too much. In the end i opted to use only 1/4 of the packet.

Also what is filtered water? Mineral water? Reverse osmosis water? The original sea monkeys needed distilled water. So in the end i just bought drinking water.


The water consitioner makes the water cloudy and have to be mixed till clear.


Designated mixing and future feeding spoon.


I'll be putting the eggs tomorrow, waiting for 24 hours instead of 12 hours before i put my ocean monkeys in. Lets hope it works.

5 comments:

jarien said...

good luck!! :)

johnson sau said...

I used to have my training in the fisheries department in T'ganu. They have a FULL kilo of artemia salina eggs!!! The guys hatch them in a full ton of sea water and grew them up to 1-2cm each!! @___@!!!

saltvinegar said...

omg any tips? I read tht a lot of them die out fast.. those kept as pets i mean.OMG imagine the amount of money they are earning by marketing them as pets.

Unknown said...

You need to air the tank daily to supply oxygen to the sea-monkeys. They died because the lack of oxygen. Even the genuine so call sea-monkey product does not come with aeration apparatus. Use a clean large syringe instead to pump air into the tank several times. Sea-monkey will die out eventually, leaving a few in the tank. That's normal. Don't throw away the water. Air the tank for about a week and you should see new life emerged.

Shun Mei Lin said...

hello. i found ur images in google so used them (above) and acknowledged u on my page. hope its ok with u. thanks :)

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