Triops

[keethrax]

So these are starting to show up everywhere. The new Sea MOnkeys if you will.

They look kinda neat, does anybody know what they require water wise and food-wise? I may set up a small tank with some for a while (I'm pretty sure they don't live very long, so it'll probably jsut be a one shot thing)

I ask about the wter requirements becasue one "manufacturer" site had soem directions that were very specific about htee water volume. this leads me to believe that the egg packet contains more than just eggs, and I would like to know what since the volume isn't a very good match for where I'd like to put them, (though it could be arranged...)

 

[fishfanatic2]

I did a google search on them, they have clubs and stuff for them, :roll: but i got an idea. Meybe you could use them as fish food when they were smaller. I dunno about the posibilities with this. Try google for some info, theres a bunch of sites, the first one under just 'triops' seemed good.

 

[keethrax]

I did a google search on them, they have clubs and stuff for them, :roll: but i got an idea. Meybe you could use them as fish food when they were smaller. I dunno about the posibilities with this. Try google for some info, theres a bunch of sites, the first one under just 'triops' seemed good.

Yeah, I did a search and foudn out some stuff, but nobody seemed to have info on what was in the packet besides eggs that I found (though there are a *lot* of hits, so I could have missed it.

I've got a 2.5 gallon doing nothing I'd like to put osme in. But while doing theabove search I can across a site that had psoted corrections to the directions form one of the kits. And it was very specific about hte amount of water to combine wiht the packet. Thsu leading me to believe there's something in the packet beyond eggs. As teh amount they said to use was somehting like 1 Liter, and the tank in question is 10x that size, I was trying to find out more about the water chemistry requirements, and possibly food sources for early devlopment. As I see those as two likely candidates for inclusoin wiht the eggs.

The only reason I can figure they're so specific about the volume is that theres is somehting in the water that either

a) adds something chemically (in which case I'd need to find something to add to provide similar chemistry)

or

b) Provides foor for the very young triops, in which case the volume may just be an issue of dilution of food, and I'd still need to add something to prevent possible starvation.

In any case, I couldn't find what else came in the egg pouches. Though I diid find that there are American and European species, and the European ones are even bigger.

I hadn't considered using them as fish food, but some of the sites indicate the eggs they produce aren't that hard to hatch, so you may be able to get a self sustaining culture oging to do just that. Not really my intention, but food for thought.

 

[Anonymous]

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=41391

 

[vintage_fish]

I did the Triops thing, and here's what happened....

I put five eggs in a 1g tank with a very low-wattage heater, and followed the directions to a T. I put five eggs in a small container of aquarium water, floated it in my plant tank to maintain temperature, and disobeyed almost every direction they gave.

Nothing happened in the 1g tank.

But in the little container in the plant tank, I soon saw an itty bitty triops-guy! Yay! Unfortunately, he ended up suffering a massive temperature swing and died at about a quarter of an inch. Damn. I plan to try again, but it will be in the 1g, heated, with tank water, and again breakin' all the rules.

I think they're utterly adorable.

 

[vintage_fish]

BTW, I do believe the stuff in the packet is just peat.... After the 1g tank did nothing, I opened up the packet, and it seemed all that was there was peat.

 

[keethrax]

BTW, I do believe the stuff in the packet is just peat.... After the 1g tank did nothing, I opened up the packet, and it seemed all that was there was peat.

I agree now that I've got some.

I dumped them in about 1.5-2 liters of water in the bottom of a 2.5 gallon tank on Thursday night and now have 15-20 small critters swimmming around. Once they get a bit beigger I'm going to slowly increase the volume, but I want to be able to find them/keep an eye on them at the moment.

 

[keethrax]

Man those little buggers grow *fast*. They've gone from 1/3 to 1/2 a mm or so to 6-8 mm for the larger ones in a few days.

They're pretty neat to watch too. definitly worht the few bucks I sropped on them. At least since I couldn't afford to really set up this tank just yet...