I purchased the Self Sustaining Ecosystem (medium sphere) in November of 2015 as a Christmas gift for my mother. When I gave it to her a month and a half later (I took it out of the box during this time, don’t worry!) I made sure to give her all the instructions so that she could care for these little guys without any issues. It has been almost three years and she has only lost one shrimp! She started off with 7. Not too bad! I will say after reading some of your reviews and seeing the photos I can clearly see why some people left bad reviews from their photos alone. If there is a bunch of green algae in your sphere it is getting TOO MUCH LIGHT! Move it away from the light source. This will throw the ecosystem off balance and your shrimp will die, which seems to be the common denominator in most of the poor reviews. Ideally, you shouldn’t really see many green algae if your sphere is healthy. My mother followed the instructions and her sphere is still sparkling and beautiful with 6 out of 7 shrimps still kicking after 3 years. My grandmother was gifted one the same Christmas and hers all died in a couple of months because she put them too close to a window. Just follow the instructions and you’ll love this beautiful little work of art for many years.
