Sad to say, my earlier batch of baby sea monkeys hatched from brine shrimp eggs did not survive into adulthood. It may be due to several reasons why they die a premature death:-

(1) Poor water quality – cloudy water was one thing; another was that 30 g aquarium salt cannot be fully dissolved at room temperature. Some of the salt settled to the bottom; undissolved.

(2) Biochemical reasons – The mini-oxygen balls which I have planted at the bottom of the tank gave the salt water a blue discoloration. I have rinsed them several times before use, but the water is still blue. Whatever chemicals present in those blue balls must have killed the poor sea monkeys

Anyway, I bought a pack of adult sea monkeys at one dollar from a neighbourhood aquarium shop and tadda, my new colony of sea monkeys!

This time, you can see the swimming creatures very clearly from afar. No need to press your nose to your computer screen And notice the beautiful set-up? The center-piece is a resin ornament I have picked up from the same aquarium shop. The colourful pebbles just make my day – only 80 cents! The same things would have cost a bomb at a you-know-where aquarium inside a popular shopping mall.

I am so happy with the design of my sea monkey castle. It also has a matching hello kitty LED lamp illuminating from above. There’s a plastic lid (not in picture) to reduce evaporation and keep the flying insects away from the water.

The next day, some sea monkeys gave birth to live babies! The bottom photo shows two sea monkeys clinging onto each other – mating. They can remain in this position for days, and you can see two of them swimming around everywhere like some conjoint twins. How fascinating!

This time, I boiled my de-chlorinated water for several minutes and kept stirring in the aquarium salt and bicarbonate soda (added as a buffer to increase the pH; sea monkeys like alkaline water). I left the brine mixture to cool overnight and sift the water through a fine mesh net to get rid of whatever undissolved salt. The water is much clearer after the painstaking preparation. Hopefully, the colony is able to thrive for at least 2 weeks to make me happy before I feed them to my pair of gluttony goldfishes – Wally and Molly. I have read on some websites that people kept generations after generations of sea monkeys for more than a few years!

I have dropped a few sea monkeys into the fish tank, much to the anticipation of Wally and Molly. Their eyes lit up when they saw the live food wriggling in the water. As usual, Molly was the big winner of the day – eating twice as much sea monkeys as Wally. Those adorable babies. Heh.

I have not been updating for a while – too many photos and no time to edit/upload. Have spent 2 weeks unpacking stuff and washing clothes. My house is finally clean again. Still need to pack all my bags and update my catalogue.
To be honest, computers are something I refrain from touching at home… Woolly is more of a couch potato and catching SCV dramas is her favourite home activity.
I digress too much.

I am supposed to write something on my latest fad – my goldfish frenzy.
You may have recalled that I have bought 2 goldfishes on 25.7.09 and now I am more than happy to say that I have managed to keep them alive for TWO WHOLE MONTHS!
I can tell you this is no easy feat.
Here are some of the stuff which I have accumulated over the last 2 months…

This is only 20% of the stuff which I have bought. Amongst these things are 4 aquarium filters, 3 air-pumps, one bottle of water quality test strips, a whole range of disease-control solutions (including antibiotics, anti-parasites, anti-fungal etc), 7 different cans of goldfish food (including freeze-dried blood worms, dried shrimps, 3 types of pellets – sinking, floating, colour enhancing, 2 types of flakes – including the ever nutritious spirulina algae; you see my goldfish need a vegetarian diet occasionally). Goldfish are just like humans. They cannot eat the same thing over and over again. Variety is the key. And yes, I have a bottle of goldfish live water and a bottle of multi-vitamins for them.

And I must introduce you the most expensive investment thus far – the ultimate goldfish keeping bible which costs me a hefty 70 bucks at Kinokuniya! This book has the most detailed information on goldfish disease, curative techniques – some of which I would not even dare to experiment because it involves minor surgical procedures. However, the book is somehow written in a haphazard manner with no index. But heck, this is the ultimate book. I have two other mini goldfish books which are less than 100 pages and they left me feeling unsatisfied after reading them because the information is just so scanty. I’d tell you when you are interested in a topic, you will read the book without ever feeling sleepy. Even 1000 pages are not enough. Chuck Love & Bailey… Oops.

And in order to give my goldfish “live” food, I have also bought brine shrimp eggs and culture them from scratch. There are, of course, live brine shrimps sold in aquarium shops. But my fastidious nature would not allow me to feed them to my two precious, for fear of introducing unknown parasites to my tank. I have to disinfect the water plants I bought before placing them into the tank. Once, my fishes became sick after adding in a new un-disinfected plant. From then onwards, I have made it a point to disinfect all plants with potassium permanganate. I even have a net soak solution which I use occasionally.

Back to brineshrimp hatching. In case you do not know – brine shrimps are also known as sea monkeys because of their hairy and fun-loving nature. These are sold as pet kits at Toy R Us to kids and mind you, one pack cost more than 30 bucks. My little bottle of brine shrimp eggs cost $6.50 from a neighbourhood aquarium shop. And all you need is to dissolve 30 g aquarium salt (non-iodized salt; not table salt) per litre, aerate it using a air-pump for 24-48 hours and wait for them to hatch.

And voila!!! Baby brine shrimps are swimming in the water. You see the brown little specks? Those are sea monkeys. I would syringe them up, sift them through a fine-mesh net and rinse them in aquarium water before feeding them to my precious. They do look a bit confused when confronted by the swimming sea monkeys. All fish love brine shrimps. It’s like bird’s nest to them.

Wally and Molly are such delicate creatures swimming in the tank. The bottom left of the picture shows part of the marimo ball which are adorable algae balls you can find in certain regions. In Hokkaido, it is popularly sold as souvenirs in closed containers and even keychains. But its overpriced as a tourist souvenir. I bought my marimo ball for only 2 dollars in a local fish shop.

I have visited so many fish shops in the last 2 months. I should think I will be able to start one very soon… But I would only sell goldfish because I have no fancy for parrot fish, guppies, swordfish, sea anemonies, tetras, bettas, arowanas. I can become the “Goldfish Consultant” and my fish shop shall be called the “Goldfish Specialist Shop”. Is there any Singapore Goldfish Council which regulates such business activites? Maybe I even need to accumulate continual goldfish education (CGE) points in order to update my skills and knowledge? Heh. Who knows?