How to Avoid Liquefying Your Jellyfish
Jellyfish are 95 percent water. They have no bones. They drift along at the mercy of the current. So guess what happens when you put them into a traditional fish tank?
“They’re going to get sucked up into the filter and liquefied,” said Alex Andon, the founder of a start-up company called Jellyfish Art.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times Alex Andon, checking jellyfish food in his San Francisco apartment.Mr. Andon’s company makes specialized aquariums that allow people to keep jellyfish in tanks — sans liquification. He pops up in our story about recession-era entrepreneurs, prompting us to veer away from the usual lineup of Internet obsessions and learn more about the technology of jellyfish tanks.
Mr. Andon says that a couple of decades ago, scientists figured out how to build tanks – known as Kreisel tanks – that use a special water-flow process to protect jellyfish. When the creatures drift near the pumps and filters, the tank delivers a current of water that washes the jellyfish in the other direction.
Sounds simple, and it can be — relatively. But Mr. Andon says that the technology can take getting used to, and that hobbyist discussion groups on the Internet often include conversations about tank-building efforts gone awry.
“It ends in frustration and people killing tons of jellyfish,” he said.
Only in the last few years have there been efforts to take the jellyfish out of research labs and public aquariums and create take-home versions of this technology.
Another key challenge, Mr. Andon says, is getting the proper food for jellyfish. Research labs and the like feed them live plankton. But that’s impractical for domesticated jellyfish, he says. So he’s been growing algae — on his roof and in his bedroom — and freezing it to provide his customers with frozen jellyfish snacks.
“It’s a huge pain for people to feed their jellyfish,” he said. “I’m growing it for them.”