Tap water is not recommended, but if you use it, let it sit for a day before starting the process. Their salt to water ratio for sea monkeys is 1 to 1½ teaspoons of sea salt to 1 cup* of water. We did have some conditioner that came with our microscope, but it wasn’t enough for the size of bowl we were using, so we used these directions to supplement with sea salt. provided directions for preparing our own saltwater solution. How to Make Sea Monkey Water Purifier Substitute: Otherwise, you can make a DIY Sea Monkey Tank out of a fish bowl or a jar. If you do feed them, McGalver Blog Spot suggests you only do it once a week. They should be able to live off the algae that naturally forms in tanks. If you get your ecosphere going, you should not need to feed the Sea-Monkeys after the original packet is gone. This turns out to be yeast and spirulina. A packet of “Growth Food” and a feeding spoon.Although the video below suggests you could buy live adults from the pet store (they sell them as fish food) and start with the adults rather than the instant live eggs, that doesn’t sound like as much fun. If you don’t have your own eggs, than you would probably want to purchase the kit.

I found directions for creating the necessary salt-water solution on. This basically turns your purified water into a saltwater base. Maybe, if you are doing this experiment in the summer, you could keep them in an outdoor fountain?) (Triops are considered a natural defense against mosquito larvae. They exist on every continent except Antarctica, although probably not as far north as Minnesota.

Triops have existed naturally since the time of the dinosaurs. Similar to Sea-Monkeys, but natural, you can raise Triops with a Smithsonian Prehistoric Sea Monsters Kit. Plus, as we’ve learned from our readers, they need a consistently warm environment, so again, unlikely to survive in the wild in the Upper Midwest. Brine Shrimp (and their hybrid cousins) require saltwater, so flushing them down the drain is unlikely to start a rogue colony in the Mississippi. Our kit, which came with our microscope set was actually natural brine shrimp. Are they environmentally safe? Have we released Frankenstein’s monster into the world? I couldn’t find that answer, so I’m assuming they are relatively harmless. The more I read about Sea-Monkeys, the more questions I had. According to Live Science, they were originally bred in 1957 by Harold von Braunhut and the name is a registered trademark. They do not exist in the wild - or at least not naturally in the wild.

Sea-Monkeys are a man-made hybrid of brine shrimp. Our microscope kit came with Brine Shrimp Eggs to hatch and view. Luckily, the research I had done helped us to know what to do with the kit and when we needed to supplement.

Ironically, we actually did have a full kit that came with my daughters microscope set, she had just lost the instructions and didn’t know what to do with the pieces. If you raise brine shrimp, leave us a comment. With some research, I was able to find some information on how to start a Sea-Monkey Colony without a kit. But, I was determined to use what we had, so I dug a little deeper. If you Google how to care for Sea-Monkeys without a kit, most articles will tell you to buy a kit. My teen recently told me she had a batch of Sea-Monkey eggs, but no kit. Twin Cities Things To Do With Kids In April (Sorted by Age).

Seamonkey jumbo kit