Sea Monkeys

For while now, we have been growing some Sea Monkeys. This follows two unsuccessful attempts to hatch Triops so the stakes felt high and it was with great relief that, just one day after setting up their tank, we had some baby Sea Monkeys swimming about. We got up to about seventeen at one point but the population is round five or six at the moment. They are surprisinigly difficult to count as the oval container they are in sets up some interesting reflections and they are indistinguishable from one another. For a while I had them under a desk lamp to keep them warm and lit but, according to the web-site, the colony could last two years and I wasn't prepared for that kind of carbon footprint! They now live on the kitchen window-sill with plenty of British November sunlight, with the occasional evening under the lamp, and they seem to be holding their own. My son has declared them 'boring' but also confesses to counting them throughout the day. He is convinced they are dying, so we have set up a chart to make a more accurate assessment of their survival rates and I discovered today that we should have been 'aerating' them (which I think just means 'stirring') so, as of this morning, they have a little more oxygen.
They spin around in their jam-jar sized tank appearing very worked up for such little creatures who can surely not have a care in the world! They are not affectionate, or even aware of my existence, and yet I feel very responsible for their survival and I must confess to really enjoying having them as pets.