Hehe.
Anyway, here are some pictures of my initial set up. This is the 300ml container that I am using to grow my baby dragons. It's a POM glass. I don't know if they sell that brand in Australia, but they sell pure pomegranate juice as well as teas that have pomegranate in them. The teas come in these nifty glasses that are reuseable. They are perfect drinking glasses. Ooops, I digress. Anyway, it was the perfect size for hatching dragons in. I put a flake of instant algae alive! in the container because I've had problems with algae cultivation in the past. I thought it might help. The stuff on the top is Glad Press n' Seal Wrap. It's usually used for food wrapping, but with my inverts (scorpions, tarantulas, etc.) I have found that it works wonders for keeping the humidity up in kritter keepers. It also works well as a lid for containers like this because it seals directly to the glass, creating a moisture seal. The moisture evaporates, condenses on the glass and plastic, and flows back into the container. It really helps keep the water levels correct. It also keeps bugs out. I open it daily to stir the dragon formula, so there is no fresh oxygen issue. You can poke holes into it, or leave a section open at the top if you are using it in a situation that requires lots of fresh air. Ok, I've slipped off topic again. I have to say, this is the most successful I've been with sea monkies/dragons before. At the moment, I have at least 70 babies swimming joyfully around in this glass! I'm very pleased with the results. Here's the pic (my aqua alien set-up is what's in the backround):
So this next picture is what I want to move my adult sea dragons into when they get there. I was going to drill a hole in the side so that I could put an air stone in but then decided against it. I changed my mind again this week, but it's too late to alter the set-up, so I just put the tubing line in from the top of the vase. I think the decorations came out really pretty. I went ahead and got this together because I was concerned about my winkles and coco snails dying off while they waited for the dragons to be big enough to tolerate them. I put several large flakes of instant algae alive! in here to get that started, and plopped all the snails in. I also added my sea bubble eggs (all the living ones died in transit) and some sea dragon food, hoping that I would get some sea bubbles to hatch. All but one of my winkles revived and all the coco snails were fine. They've been happily scrounging for food the past few days. The press 'n seal wrap keeps the winkles in too! No escapees for me! I haven't seen any sea bubbles emerge, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I think the dragons are really going to like this world once they are big enough to enjoy it. The total volume for this container is 5 litres.
Here's a closer pic. I have a bottle green sea moss, a blue sea moss, a black coral, a white coral, and blue, light green, bottle green, and black magic beach balls. The substrate is coral gravel. I'm hoping that UncleBodman's passive filtration will work with my little eco system.
So there you have it! I hope to have some close-ups once I add the dragons to the big tank. They are so fun to watch!!!
