I just wanted to share with you that my sister purchased the Small Pod 5.25″ ecosphere serial number 54794 back in October 2997, so that was about 15 1/2 years ago, and she had it sent to our family and we still have one shrimp that is alive. I find that rather amazing and we have watched this ecosphere onver all these years and still watch with interest that this one little shrimp is still alive. Our children were not real young at the time, our youngest was 17 when this was shipped to us but our family has watched this pod with interest over the years. It pretty much stays in the same spot on a shelf and in fact we will go for a long time and just about forget it and then we will look in and sure enough that one little shrimp in still alive. I just found the EcoSphere Handbook the other day and checked the pod once again and the shrimp is still alive and the handbook says it was issued October 1997 and I was just amazed that we have had it that long and one is still alive. I just wanted to drop you a note and let you know how long we have had ours and it still working!!