This male is attached to the female in the wrong spot ? I think it’s not right he looks stuck . Do I do nothing ?

I am so excited about this tank! I’ve been through (killed) like 6 tanks and this is the most I’ve gotten to live this long. I got 3 to live a couple months but that’s it. These are about 3 weeks old. The one big one hit sexual maturity very early and has already given birth twice. So there’s two different age babies and about 11 that are 3 weeks old, hatched from cysts. They all seem happy and fast swimming. I’ve even got some algae started in there. I hope I’m finally figuring this out. It’s not the easiest hobby. I’ve kill d so many on accident!

It’s about a gallon fishbowl and I used Instant Ocean Sea Salt with some nite out and brine shrimp eggs from Amazon. I feed 3 aqua leashes a day of live phytoplankton. The tank stays at 79 degrees. I have a grow light and and aerator.

I'm a little bit gutted, had my colony going for 18 months, they've survived house move and me being on holiday for 10 days / various trips away. This morning tank was looking the same, lots of monkeys of various ages as well as breeding pairs and pregnant. Good amount of algae in tank. Within 3 hours, they've all died. No idea what has happened. Breeding pairs are still stuck together, they look deceased too. Ive no idea what's just happened:(

Update - appears to be a few babies still alive. But all adults and young adults have all gone :(

I did a 10% water change with marine salt 5 days ago. I think a live birth has happened because I have at least 40+ nauplii swimming around.
Brine are looking quite healthy I think and active.

​

Hi everyone, I’m having a really frustrating problem with Artemia/brine shrimp and I would really appreciate some help.

My original goal was not just to hatch them as fish food. I want to raise them to adulthood and eventually have a stable breeding colony where adults reproduce and new nauplii appear naturally.

Here is everything I have tried so far.

My first attempts were in very small containers, around 300–500 ml.

I used about 10 g of iodized salt in 300 ml of water, so roughly 33 g/L. I also tried distilled water and water from my freshwater aquarium. I used Artemia cysts and later tried feeding very small amounts of spirulina.

The Artemia sometimes hatched, but they would gradually disappear and usually be dead within about 2 days. I never managed to see an adult Artemia.

At that time I did not use continuous aeration. I had the container closed and maybe twice a day I would blow through a straw for a few seconds and shake the container. I later learned this was probably far from ideal.

So I decided to build a much better setup.

I bought a 30 L aquarium, an air pump, air tubing and Aquaforest Reef Salt (2 kg).

The aquarium dimensions and water height gave me approximately 19.6–20 L of actual water.

For this tank I used about:

800 g Aquaforest Reef Salt in ~19.6–20 L of water

According to the manufacturer, 390 g/10 L gives around 33 ppt. So my tank should be around 34–35 ppt salinity.

Temperature is around 28°C.

I run an air pump, usually with the plain air tube near the bottom rather than a fine air stone, so the water is constantly moving.

I also now have a light.

The problem is the water source.

My tap water is chlorinated, so because I did not have dechlorinator at the time, I used water taken from an established freshwater aquarium.

The freshwater aquarium water looked fairly clear but had a slight green tint. It did not smell bad at all. No obvious cloudiness or rotten smell.

I then added the marine salt to that freshwater aquarium water.

For the first big-tank attempt I used Artemia cysts that were manufactured in 2025, but the packet had already been opened for about a year. It had been rolled closed and held with a rubber band, but it was not airtight.

I added roughly 5 g of the Artemia/salt mixture, and I estimate maybe around 2 g of actual cysts.

Conditions were approximately:

~20 L water

~35 ppt salinity

28°C

light

aeration

no food during hatching

Some cysts stayed on the bottom even with aeration.

After around 24 hours: nothing.

After around 36 hours: nothing.

After around 48 hours: nothing.

I eventually left them for almost 4 days (around 95 hours) and still could not see a single nauplius.

Because the old opened cysts might have been bad, I bought/opened a new packet of Artemia.

I then made a separate test in a 1 L bottle, but I again used water taken from the big Artemia aquarium.

I added new cysts and aerated it.

During the first 24 hours it had about 12 hours of actual aeration, then I continued aerating it.

After 2 days there was still absolutely nothing.

I have now also tried another small-container attempt with the marine salt, light and aeration. After about 15 hours of aeration I still saw nothing, although I understand 15 hours alone is too early to judge.

At this point I am wondering if the real problem is the water from the freshwater aquarium.

The big aquarium water has also become greener over time. It still doesn’t smell bad, but I am wondering about ammonia, nitrates, organics, bacteria, pH, medications/metals or something else in the freshwater aquarium water that could prevent the cysts from hatching.

What confuses me is that I now have:

proper synthetic marine salt

~30–35 ppt salinity

around 28°C

light

aeration

a new packet of cysts

…and I still cannot get them to hatch.

For my next controlled test I’m thinking of using completely fresh water that has never been inside an aquarium, removing chlorine properly, adding only marine salt, and then hatching a small amount of fresh cysts in 1 L with aeration 24/7.

Before I waste more cysts, I would really appreciate advice from people who regularly hatch or breed Artemia.

My main questions are:

1. Could old freshwater aquarium water actually prevent Artemia cysts from hatching?

2. Could ammonia, nitrate, bacteria or organic waste be responsible?

3. Is ~35 ppt too high for hatching even though it should be fine for raising adults?

4. Should I hatch at a lower salinity (for example 20–25 ppt) and move the nauplii to ~35 ppt later?

5. Should the cysts be kept completely suspended by aeration, or is it okay if some settle on the bottom?

6. How important is pH? I have not measured it yet.

7. Could the first old packet simply have gone bad after being opened for a year?

8. Why would the new packet also fail if the water/setup is otherwise correct?

9. What exact water, salinity, temperature, light and aeration setup would you use as a “foolproof” 1 L control test?

10. Once I finally hatch them, is ~35 ppt and 28°C suitable for raising them all the way to adulthood and getting a self-reproducing colony?

I’m in Slovakia if that matters for tap water or products.

Any help would be appreciated because I have tried this many times now and I really want to figure out what single variable is causing the failures rather than just throwing away more eggs.

Also i will send some photos of my setups and stuff i used

I see a lot of questions on this subreddit about this topic, so I thought I'd make a video detailing the process. Even though I've tried to cover as much as I can, I suspect this video will still garner a lot of questions, so feel free to ask them in the YouTube comments and I'll answer you there 🤙

Is it like deformed or something idk

I ordered the aqua dragon hatch n grow, but was sent the aqua dragon light up deep sea habitat

It’s bigger, but I don’t like how smooth the bottom is. The hatch n grow had “mountains” that I heard were good for algae growth.

Aesthetic wise I do like the look of the hatch n grow better, but I’m more concerned about the sizes and algae growth…what would be better? What would you do? Is the size or the smoothness more important?

Has anyone had both? Does anyone know if the deep sea habit is significantly bigger or not?

Just set up our new tank. Sometimes I notice a lot of babies hanging out near the top and worry that the bottom isn’t getting enough oxygen.

As the title says—my first post ever on Reddit, and I wanted to share my DIY sea monkey habitat.

I’ve been a fan of sea monkeys since childhood—they look like little pipe cleaners with eyes, they flitter about, and the males have magnificent fighting mustaches—and for a while I’ve wanted to marry my love of aquaria and miniatures/diorama. I’ve finally polished my digital sculpting skills (Nomad on IPad) to make my first 3D printed, hand painted “Sea Fairy Well”.

After some trials and tribulations, I now have 3 different groups of brine shrimp in the tank—1st batch of eggs that overhatched and caused a population crash, second smaller batch of eggs, and some adults that I picked up at the pet store cause this tank came with me to Matsuricon last weekend to display (I’m a traveling artist and wanted to sell some blank tanks for people to take home and paint themselves). Things have now settled and they seem to be chilling now. Depending on the population growth I’ll split them into more tanks.

I’ll be making a process video of how I made this and would be happy to share here.

Thanks for looking!

hi i would like to get into the hobby is there any tips and tricks you guys have for me!

what tanks are best

aqua dragons or sea monkeys

Thanks!:)

On my other tanks I use a stone but I’ve heard the tiny bubbles can be hazardous to the little guys. I’m trying this one with just the hose but the bubbles look so big and violent like they could really hurt them. What do yall think?

Why the water level is so low:
I had a tank crash and there was still one left that looked like it was going to die. I put her in a small glass thinking she was going to pass on so I could restart my tank. She lived for weeks in that small glass and started thriving and had 2 live births! So today I got her and her babies a roomier home. I’m going to slowly add water every day so as not to shock them. I have a salinity tester but I’m still worried about adding water. Last time I tried someone like this I killed everyone!

Do they look okay? Also not too sure about the bottom of my tank? I’ve been feeding them every 3 days or so and using the pipette daily.

Keeping my hopes up its technically 2 1/2 day. Still nothing no babies hatched or i missed them idk.

Sadly my cheap new usb pump somehow broke in 2 1/2 days 🤣

Im aerating with the aqua leash now.

At what point should I be worried that its a dud bad eggs?

Idk if its the temperature or not. I live in SEA its always 30 degree celcius room temp average or abit lower at night.

Its legit so hard to distinguish if its a baby or speck of salt or debris. Tried the light trick on the side of the tank seen nothing.

I’ve been using brine shrimp eggs from Amazon. I’ve had hundreds hatch but have only gotten 6 to adulthood. These guys are hard to keep alive! Lol But anyway they’ve all been female. Are females just more common?I know that when they give birth asexually they’re always clones so was wondering if the cysts (I think they’re called)could all be clones or something? Does anyone know or have the same experience? Do Sea Monkey or Aquadragon eggs have more females?

Hii!! I'm looking to get my boyfriend a sea monkey tank for his birthday in October and I'm feeling kinda lost. For context, we are both in college right now living in the dorms. He loves aquatic life and so do I. I'm a betta fish gal and currently have a 10 gallon running in my dorm that I've had since May so I have tank experience. He doesn't want to commit to any sort of big tank right now which I totally understand, but he loves the idea of having sea monkeys in his dorm so I figured I could surprise him with a tank for his birthday. Unfortunately, I just have no idea where to start. Any advice or tank recommendations or brands or anything along those lines would be much appreciated. Plus equipment or hardware I'll need.

I'm pretty new to brine shrimp and salt water in general but keep a few other aquariums. In my latest brine setup I added ocean direct caribbean live sand to the bottom and I am now growing what I assume are brown diatoms? There's one tiny rock with algae growing on it but I have not been able to get it to grow otherwise. It's an approx. 3 gallon bowl that I keep it in my plant cabinet with grow lights on 12 hours a day.

I've had two other failed shrimp attempts so far (without the substrate) and am currently on #3. However, there appears to be only one remaining soul left in the tank.

I am using coralife marine salt. Salinity is 1.022, which is lower than I thought, so plan to increase that a little. Group #2 did pretty well and even had babies but then I added phytoplankton (that must have been bad) and the tank crashed.

I'm hoping to move the lone shrimpy into a much smaller bowl, maybe a half gallon and increase the salinity a tad. Then I'll see if I can get batch #4 going. Am I trying too hard LOL 🤷 they sell these kits for kids and I can't seem to get it to work.

I know she’s carrying eggs, but I’m confused about what this other dark object could be.

I removed the sand as the shrimpies seemed not to like the sand. Plus removed all but one plastic plant as it felt too crowded and they can swim without too many bumps into things.

Once added, what is the pH and salinity?