My Pet Sea Slater

This post is made up of three articles that I originally wrote on Bubblews about my 'pet' Sea Slater - (A marine woodlouse...) Yes, I'm weird, lol! . Anyhoo' I am deleting all of my posts from that site and will be re-housing some of them here on this blog.

Shrodingers Prawn

(originally published on Bubblews 21st August 2013) 

I had no idea that a little sea creature had hitched a ride home with me until he shot out of a rock that I was admiring on my dining table. He gave me the shock of my life and I screamed. "Eurgh there's a prawn thingy!" My partner shouted "Cool!" and the creature shot back into the stone.

I felt really bad that the poor thing had come home with me, so I filled my beachcombing box-bag with pebbles and tried to make him a nice environment to stay in until I could take him back to the beach.

I made some salt water with a very random guess of how much salt to use, 1tsp for about a cm of water in my box, and I added some sea clay that was stuck on some of the fossils that I had not washed yet. (I figured the sea clay would have minerals etc and small stuff that it can eat)

Anyway, with this done, I closed my box and he became Scrodinger's prawn until this morning when I finally managed to get some proper equipment to look after him properly.You can see him in this photo in the temporary home I made him inside my fossil box. As you can see, he is very much alive still - yay!

I phoned my mum in the morning to see if she wanted to take him back to the beach (45 mins drive) :) No she didn't! But after I told her that I had named him Arnold J Swimmer (After Arnold J Rimmer in Red Dwarf) she softened, she lectures in biology and as luck would have it she actually had some proper scientific sea granules that you measure out and mix with water, to provide the exact salinity and minerals for sea creatures. She also gave me a vial of dried seamonkies because "They will keep Arnold company and he can eat them!" Lol

I also found out that Arnold J Swimmer is not a prawn thingy, he is a 'sea slater'.

This is Arnold's new home, I went for a circular tub and tried to make a rock pool effect by building up stones around the edge. I am getting quite attached to him, he is very 'aware' and will run and hide from noises. I quite like watching him scuttle around, he has big boggly eyes and is quite cute as far as sea slater's go!

I have added some seamonkies, but as far as I can tell they are dead as all I have is a brown dust floating on the water, and no signs of life.Here he is checking out the stones :)

My Weird Pet is Thriving 

(originally published Bubblews 12 Oct 2013)

Some of you may remember the epic tale where I rescued a poor 'sea slater' from my fossil bag (it had hitched a lift home with me), and gave it a home? You don't? Lol! I don't blame you really!

Anyway It's a few months later now and my little 'pet' is thriving, he is still alive, growing huge, and has shed his skin and grown two new legs! (I feel so proud!) I am/was only intending keeping him until I could get back to the sea and release him, but errr, I have to confess that I really like him!

He is soooo easy to look after, about the same effort as looking after a plant. He is cute too, he lives inside a stone which has a natural cave hollowed out of it, this is his little home and it's nice seeing his boggly eyes peeking out of his cave. I have just upgraded him to an aquarium so now he has a much larger space to scuttle around in. (He loves scuttling around!)

I made his aquarium look just like a rock pool, with a tray of water and rocks stacked around it, I found out by studying him that sea slaters like to spend a lot of time out of the water. (surprisingly since they are found in the sea and rockpools)

A sea slater is the beast in the picture. It looks like a cross between a prawn (big boggly eyes) and a flat woodlouse. I have seen them over 1inch long at Folkestone, but mine is about 1.5cm.

This was my fave comment on the above Seaslater post when I published it on Bubblews, I had to save it for posterity when I deleted my articles there.

I Love My Sea Woodlouse and it Loves Me! 

(Originally Published Bubblews 8th April 2014)

I am pleased to announce that my pet sea woodlouse has been with me for 8 months now, and is still very much alive! At first I did not want a pet sea woodlouse, but it hitched a ride home with me and so I had to look after it.

Since both those posts I have been watching him and seeing what he likes, he has had 4 different styles of home so far, and I think I have found the perfect environment now, with gravel and pebbles rather than sand and pebbles, and not too much water. He seems really happy and has grown much bigger!

Although it's a sea animal and can be in the sea for quite a while, it does not go into its water very often. Only after it has shed it's skin, and it seems like it prefers dry land which is damp much more than water. I have started using real sea water in his pool whereas before I was using a sea water substitute that you mix, he is still not bothered and has not been in the water.

When I first found him in my bag (after a trip to the beach) he was tiny, now he is looking like a cockroach size, about 3cm long and 1cm wide. I have finally started putting my finger into the tank and letting him touch it with his legs - he's so cute and he does not bite.

He likes to eat- moss, broccoli (cooked only), boiled egg whites, white bread, certain dog foods, small bits of roast chicken, and sea weed. He used to like prawns but then I put a whole prawn in thinking he would like it, he didn't, when he saw the prawn it was like he jumped in shock, and ran off. Maybe prawns are a predator of sea slaters.

I have noticed that before he sheds his skin he won't eat for a few weeks, he will just lie under a rock like he is dead, I keep thinking he has died and poking at him, but that's one of his routines.

He seems to know his way around his home too, and sleeps in the same place until he gets too big for it, then he moves to another place. He likes going inside shells, and behind rocks.

I took the intro pic through the tank, it's the first time he has been big enough to really show up in a photo, look at his big black eyes, awwwww! This is his home, it's in a medium sized cylinder shaped tank about 30cm diameter. It looks messy from the top, but from the side it looks like a beach rockpool, I have even draped seaweed here and there on the rocks, at night my sea slater climbs up there and eats the sea weed.