| JUNE NEWS Main Page
Sea-Monkey® Cam
Historic Catalog
Give-A-Ways
Games & Screensavers
How to Order Kits
Previous News
|
| And the winner
is... |
| We are very sorry for last's
month winner who failed to answer our emails, but we really want to give these kits away,
so this month... we have 2 new lucky winners!!. Remember the winner(s) have 30 days to
send us a SASE to claim the prize!
Register here for
the June Give-A-Way! |
Congratulations to
the happy winners!! mijoric@aol.com
& (another@not.claimed)
Please send us a SASE as soon as possible! |
| Artemia Salina -
no longer exists! |
| From time to time, I receive a
request for more scientific info on Sea-Monkeys® so to please future visitors, here's
some actualized data about Artemia. Actual species of Artemias;
| A. Franciscana |
America |
| A. Tunisiana |
Europe, Africa |
| A. Urmiana |
Iran |
| A. Monica |
Mono Lake, USA |
| A. Persimilis |
Argentina |
| A. Parthenogenetica |
Eurasia, Africa & Oceania |
| A. Sinensis |
China |
| A. NYOS |
Transcience USA |
Notice that there's no more Artemia Salina species alive! So nowadays is not
scientifically correct to name them as "Artemia Salina"
The Parthenogenetica are "females only" species, can give males on stressfull
conditions. (I have a batch of eggs of this species)
Hope you found this info helpfull for your science projects! |
Classification:
| PHYLUM |
Arthropoda |
| CLASS |
Crustacea |
| SUB-CLASS |
Branchiopoda |
| ORDER |
Anostraca |
| FAMILY |
Artemiidae |
| GENRE |
Artemia LEACH 1819 |
|
| Are those 1970's
food the real thing? |
I can't deny that
I had some doubts when I first saw some of these foods for sale in a web site and in some
auctions, so I decided to prove to myself that those are the "real" thing.
I bought several 1970's packets and this is what I found.
(Note: Genuine Sea-Monkey® collectors may not want to see a 1970 food packet to be
opened so watch it at your own risk, guess that I have Sea-Monkeys® more for the
scientific value than for the collection hobby ;) |
Exhibit #1: Oh, well,
many of you are tired of seeing this already. Let's move to Exhibit #2
But, I must say that the packet shows a good first sign of being a genuine item by the way
it was sealed and the artwork. This was the original artwork for Sea-Monkeys® in
their first handbook. |
1970's Original Growth Food art. Cute, isnt it? |
| Exhibit #2: When I opened this
old-fashioned, stiff packet, a strong yeast odor came out (of course, not as 'sweet' as I
remember, probably because 30 years have passed!... this is no 'fresh' yeast) Notice
that the card shows a different copyright than the food packet. This is no surprise,
as we can find some 1995 Growth Food packets in 1997,99 kits.
The strong yeast odor from this packet is a second good sign of a genuine 1970's food
ingredient. |
In the back of the card it had a Copyright from 1971 printed... but the food packet says
its from 1970.
Here's several important info at the back of the packet;
"...Feed a few grains (about as much as the size of a match head) once or twice a
week only. If water turns cloudy, stop feeding until it clears up. Use ONLY
the special foods we have developed and nothing else..."
Seems like when they said 'feed only with Sea-Monkey® food', they really mean it! ;)
This also confirms the absence of the Feeding Spoon in earlier kits.
(Nowadays, it is very difficult for some people to understand how easy it is to
accidentally overfeed them, by USING a measuring spoon, just imagine the hard time 1970's
owners had without it!) |
| Exhibit #3: A test that I
can't overlook! I did this to prove that the original ingredient had a yellow
coloring (because it was yeast based) and it helped the water to keep a strong green color
by constantly adding more coloring to the formula. This is a good third sign that we are
dealing with a genuine product! |
By adding a drop of water to the right side, you'll instantly notice the "blue &
yellow strings" coming from the food powder. The formula always had a strong
green color thanks to this color additive (this color crystals were eliminated from the
new algae-based foods)
All of the 70's food had this properties (except Red-Magic), including the Sea-Medic.
I remember that some foods had different variations of these visibly undetectable
color crystals. Sea-Medic for example, contained purple crystals mixed with it yeast
ingredient. Some others contained different combinations. I can't remember the
exact details of the color combinations for all the food formulas, but I recall a larger
amount of yellow crystals in the Banana Treat formula. |
There's still some
facts that I'll reserve for myself to detect a genuine Sea-Monkey® product. The
reason, I think its obvious, I dont want to educate a potential copycat! But at
least I can tell you for sure that the batch of sealed 1970 Sea-Monkey® Growth Food I
bought are the 'real thing'.
By the way, as the curious person I am, I fed 2 tanks with this food, and I didnt lose any
Sea-Monkeys®, but they reacted a little indiferent to the food at first. A very big
difference compared to when I feed them with Red Magic! My Sea-Monkeys goes
'bananas' when they smell the sweeter odor of the new foods.These packets are
'time-travellers' by themselves. Just imagine the amount of American history these
packets can tell. They also survived many American families thru the time, the
Brady Bunch, Al Bundy & Peg, The Simpsons.... and makes you wonder, what
happened to these packets? Were they stored and lost in a forbidden corner of a big,
closed warehouse? The truth is out there. And for now, Im still looking for
sealed Sea-Monkey® kits with genuine 1970's artwork, I know some can be found in
flea-markets in some parts of Latin America. |
|
