Office pets have been known to lighten up the atmosphere in busy workplaces, but a Taiwanese company is now hoping that the wonders of the deep sea will prove to have an equally therapeutic effect.

The company, Caliber Multimedia, is introducing three different desktop “seaweed pets” to keep office workers company. They consist of marine algae from Japan that grow naturally over time in a water-filled transparent sphere.

General Manager Alex Chang said the company has sold 10,000 of the desktop distractions in Taiwan over the past two months, after previously developing a “magical crystal” and “wish flower” that also grow on their own after the consumer mixes water with a powder that the comes as part of a kit.

“These innovative products have opened a new market in recent years. We’re not only developing our own creative items to export to the United States and Europe, we’re also introducing interesting items from other countries to Taiwan,” Chang said.

According to a recent poll, many workers suggested that a real office pet such as a hamster or parrot would make people more productive.

But not every boss can accept the idea, and therefore many employees choose to scatter other objects around their desk to cheer themselves up, a trend that has exploded around the world and one on which Caliber Multimedia hopes to capitalize.

The three kinds of mini algae being used in the company’s latest offerings were originally food products, and their creator, Nobumasa Kariya, chief director of Japan-based SEA-LABO Corporation, said he had not expected to find another function for the algae.

His research into the algae was simply motivated by trying to increase their production, but his findings led the algae to grow so much that a new application presented itself and opened a new market in Japan, Kariya said.

The company has sold 500,000 of the desktop “pets” since they were introduced in March 2009.

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