Jelly fish

[rmenkes]

I saw a really cool jellyfish tank in the bahamas. how hard are they to keep? where do you buy them?

 

[Anonymous]

In a word...impossible. Or close enough to it. The tank you saw was called a Kreisel (sp?) tank, and is specifically designed for jellyfish. The water movements are kept gentle and perfectly balanced so that the jellyfish rarely, if ever, come in contact with the side walls of the tank (which can damage them).

for the most part jellyfish are best kept by mother nature or marine biologists in public aquaria.

 

[Anonymous]

Let's not forget the Cassiopea guys. The upside-down jellyfish are similar to corals, in that they have zooxanthellae in their tissues and sit upside down exposing their tentacles to sunlight in order to get nutrition from their zoox. They are found in shallow mangrove waters. They are boring. They don't hurt when they sting your hands. They live for a while before mysteriously falling apart. Although they have been shown to receive more than their needed carbon requirements from their zoox, I think there is something else that they need to survive for a long time in captivity.

If you take ones the size of pieplates, they are great fun to throw at a friend's back. That friend will be zapped and have a big red welt. We sometimes have jelly fights when we are out doing research. The animals don't seem to worse for the wear. Besides, it beats the maceration and grinding they receive as part of the lab analysis.

Cheers,
Brian