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The Gadget Shop Novelty Toy Reviews
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Sea Monkeys Ocean Zoo
by kaitlinsmummy Many moons ago (before my house became a petting zoo!), my daughter started showing a preference for small animals, that being fish in particular! My self and my husband decided that we would get her a goldfish (and the tank and all the stuff that goes with a starter pack) for her Christmas present, but then also came across a ... set of "sea monkeys", in our old Woolworths (i really miss that shop, especially at Christmas!). I decided that even if my daughter didn't really like them, we could feed them to the fish! Within the set you get a small tank for the monkeys, a packet with the dehydrated eggs in, a packet of food for them, a feeding implement (a small scoop!) and a small light on an arm, which is to aid seeing the monkeys, but also encourages "hatching" when first setting the tank up. As this was a Christmas present, my daughter decided she couldn't wait to use the still bottled water suggested to set up the tank, but rather used water straight from the tap, so when the monkeys didn't hatch within the first few minutes lost interest, and went onto something else. I was of course livid, and kept the tank on my kitchen window sill for a few days after declaring i would return it for a refund! I stood washing up one day, and due to there being a small circular concave on the tank (which magnifies), i noticed something flit past.......finally the babies had been born (i was probably more excited than my daughter was!). In total we had about 7-8 sea monkeys, well water fleas would be a better description, and they didn't so much swim as pulse across the tank, my daughter again looked once (just to feed them!), then lost interest, so they became mine! They didn't get as big as i was expecting, the picture on the box showed them as being small water creatures, with legs and head being visible, i really struggled seeing any of these attributes, just specks pulsing across the tank, so visually they are not really worth it, but from a novelty point of view are the ideal, low maintenance pet! (My daughter loved telling people she had pet monkeys!). Price wise for the set it cost me around the £7.00 mark (many, many moons ago) and that included everything you needed to hatch, grow and look after the monkeys, though if your monkeys lasted longer than mine (a few weeks, and actually longer than the fish!), there was an order form in the pack to buy more food, and even more eggs to replace the previous ones, which we didn't bother with! Personally i think this would appeal to really young children, and for parents with limited space and experience with animals, they are low cost and very low maintenance. For availability visit - www.amazon.co.uk Thanks for reading x Read the complete review |
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Sea Monkeys Ocean Zoo
by Jenny_Summers Some years ago, when I was 12, I received a glowing school report and my dad took me to our local Beatties Department Store to pick out something nice as a reward, well I made a bee-line for the toy section and eventually (after ogling all the toys and games for quite some time) I picked out a Sea Monkeys play-set, I believe it was the ... ghost pirate ship set. It's now nearly 11 years on, the play-set and the Beatties department store are long gone, but my love of sea monkeys remains as strong now as it did then. Well, you can imagine my delight when my nephew announced to me last year that he had discovered these as he put it 'fist things' called sea-monkeys and would like some as his present from me and his uncle for his birthday. I ended up buying him the ocean-zoo set from amazon, there were 4 different color tanks to choose from, red, green, orange and purple. I picked the green one for him and paid just under 8 pounds for it with free super saver delivery, perfect as it allowed me to also buy him some other little bits and pieces and not go to much over the 15 pound limit my sister-in-law had set. The set comes with the sea-monkey tank, a sachet of sea-monkey eggs, a sachet of food and a sachet of water purifier. It also comes with a measuring spoon for the food and a pipette for taking out the sea monkeys when you want a closer look at them. On the day of his birthday we all went round for a 'birthday tea' and after he'd opened all of his presents I helped Tylor set the tank up in his bedroom. It's worth noting that the tank is pretty light so should be put in a location where you wont accidentally knock it over and should be kept out of direct sunlight so the tank doesn't get to hot and the water doesn't evaporate. I think he was a little disappointed at first as once you've set it all up according to the enclosed instructions (using bottled or filtered water and not tap water) you have to leave the water to 'purify' for at least 24 hours before you can add the sea monkey eggs. So I left my brother-in-law with strict instructions not to let him empty the eggs in until at least 5 o'clock the next evening. The next day at about half 6 the phone rang, it was Tylor, sounding really miserable. He'd waited patiently until bang on 5 then emptied the eggs into the tank and.. nothing! He thought the eggs hadn't worked. What he didn't realize was that the sea monkeys are so tiny that for at least a week or so you wont be able to see them. After I had reassured him that this was normal he seemed to cheer up a bit and went off to wait for the sea monkeys to grow. Then just over a week later we went down to my sister-in-law's for a visit. Almost as soon as I had walked in Tylor dragged me off excitedly to show me the sea-monkeys, low and behold, there swimming past the built in magnifying glasses on the front of the tank were several funny looking creatures. They were even odder looking than I had remembered, they're a variety of brine shrimp I believe and they do look very shrimp like. He has only cleaned the tank out once up until now, the instructions say to tip a little of the water out and then top it up with fresh bottled water or filtered water. It's relatively easy to do although you do have to be careful not to tip away your sea monkeys, the pipette is pretty useful for retrieving them though. It doesn't require frequent cleanings unlike a fish tank as the sea monkeys eat algae so the instructions say if it gets a little cloudy to stop feeding them until the water clears up and in most cases this will do the trick. All in all they were a great purchase, Tylor loves watching and feeding them once a week as is recommended in the manual. They are very low maintenance which is perfect for a busy young boy (or girl) to fit into their schedule and means parents don't get lumbered with taking care of them when the child gets bored. If they lasted the 2 years they're supposed to the food looks like it would run out and you might have to source the food online because it isn't widely available. But it can be bought from the manufacturers website so that shouldn't be too much of an issue. Read the complete review |
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Sea Monkeys Ocean Zoo
by daisylee3 My boyfriend Marc is nearly 27 but a big, geeky kid at heart so when I saw these sea monkeys advertised on Amazon a few weeks before Christmas, I just knew he would love the whole concept and bought him some. I paid £8.49 and the RRP is apparently £8.99. Sea monkeys can be purchased from a variety of shops including supermarkets, argos, ... toys r us and so on. They are aimed at children but they make a nice unique gift for anyone who's into the whole 'science' kind of concept of it all. These sea monkeys are marketed as 'instant life' and 'cool pets with no mess to clean up'. They are a great, much easier alternative to dogs, cats, hamsters and so on and even fish. They don't recquire large tanks or regular feeding so are really cheap 'pets' (I use that term loosely!) So, what are sea monkeys? According to Wikipedia, they are 'hybrid brine shrimp' which have been created in a labatory. The sea monkeys come in a range of different types of packaging and I chose the 'ocean zoo'. There's also a plain version available. You get a large A4 sized piece of cardboard which is blue with the branding and product name on it along with a picture of a bizzare looking sea monkey. Attatched to this cardboard underneath a clear sheet of plastic is the 'tank' which is essentially a plastic container with a plastic base and a lid. You get instructions and 3 sachets. The instructions are illustrated and easy to follow. You first need to fill the 'tank' with either distilled or filtered water and then add the contents of each sachet as instructed. Each sachet is numbered. Number 1 is the water purifier. This removes any harmful chemicals from the water. Once you have added this to the water and stirred it around with the plastic spoon provided you will need to wait for 24 hours before adding packet number 2. Sachet number 2 is the seamonkey eggs, which is described by the manufacturers as an instant life packet. The eggs are tiny and there are loads of them! When I and my boyfriend added them into the water they floated around and didn't do anything so we left them for a while and when we looked again a few hours later there was still nothing. After about 4 days we started to notice small things moving in the water. They were clear and small but noticeable in certain lights. There was also lots of unhatched eggs. We fed them after a week with sachet number 3 (the growth food). We gave them one small spoonful from the spoon provided and stirred it around. The manufacturers reccomend feeding them once a week and a packet of the food can last for upto a year. It is important not to overfeed the sea monkeys as it can kill them. We have had our sea monkeys now since Christmas, so just over 4 months. At one point there were loads as they do mate, however there's now about twenty. Most are small but there are two big ones, which we've named Iron and Wine. They're not the cutest pets (and look nothing like the illustration on the packet) but are weirdly fascinating and they seem healthy and swim around a lot so they're obviously alive and not a gimmick like some people claim. We still feed them once a week and although we still haven't changed the water (seems a bit risky due to how tiny the sea monkeys are!) the water seems clean and in good condition. These sea monkeys made an unusual and unique stocking filler for my boyfriend and he really liked them, although after about 5 days he (and I) had lost interest, however we do occasionally have a little look and see how they're getting on and we make sure we feed them weekly. A child would no doubt be fascinated by these and they are suitable for children over 3 years. I overall reccomend sea monkeys as they do work, but they're not very interesting and the novelty wears off very soon! Read the complete review |
The Gadget Shop Novelty Toy |
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4 reviews Manufacturer: The Gadget Shop / Type: Novelty Toy |
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