Triops

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 5:00 am

I'm going to quote this and post in the invert section of the forum if you don't mind.

eroomlorac wrote:I am responding to an old post, but I saw that you have kept triops. I have tried that, too, with a kit I bought at Wal-Mart but my triops live about three weeks then all die. Do you keep your tank of triops perpetual, in that the lay eggs and grow as the older ones die? I thought the eggs had to go through a drying cycle. Let me know if you still have triops and how you have kept them. I can hatch them and keep them through a lifecycle, then that's it. Interested in keeping a tank of them going. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks. Carol

Once the triops are about a week old, or a little bigger, I move them to a 10 gallon tank filled with R/O water. Distilled works too. I put all the water from the rearing tank. I put well rinsed play sand in the bottom of the tank so the triops can dig &lay eggs.

I also put a few adult pond snails inthe tank as the bigger triops love to eat the little baby snails.

I use hung over the back filter with a foam filter over the intak so the triops don't get stuck on the intake. open the the "tea bag" in the the tank. It is loaded with good bactera. Don't worry about the mess.

Do NOT do water changes, just add distilled or R/O water to make up for evaporation. Be carefull not to over feed. I feed live daphnia, sinking goldfish granules. Live plants are good, epecially fast growers. I used Riccia, but needed to shelter it from the filter outflow. As the tank gets overgrown, just pull out theplants and dispose of them in other tanks, sell them, etc.

They will live for around 3 months and get to be 4"+ head to tail.

Once they die off, dain the water off the sand and ad a strong brine solution to it. stirr it up really well. Pour off the stuff that floats through a coffee filter. Rinse well & dry it. These are your eggs.

To start the next generation you need to buy more tea bags, or get some pond mud.

iturnrocks · Post by **iturnrocks** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:26 pm

Ive had 3 generations of triops just by draining the tank when the last one dies, drying the substrate for about a month, then re-adding new distilled. I did that once. After the second time, I drained the tank and put it outside. Eventually it rained into the 10 gallon and filled up, and I had a new batch swimming around.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:28 am

I had a similar experience. I had an infestation of pond snails and treated the substrate with salt to kill them off after the last triops died. I left the brine in there for a week, then rinsed it well to remove the salt. Two days later I had hundreds of baby triops.

None survived to adulthood as I had no source of micro-organisms to prevent the bacterial or fungal infection that always starts around day 3-4. The "tea bag" or pond mud seems to do the trick.

iturnrocks · Post by **iturnrocks** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 12:20 pm

My tank left outside, stayed outside and I guess was frequently updated with insect larvae so I had 3 survive to adulthood.

eroomlorac · Post by **eroomlorac** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 4:36 pm

Thanks, everyone. I will give it a tryl.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 5:25 pm

Just an update. I got some native dried up pond dirt from a member here, iturnrocks, and the soil is WAY better for raising triops than any of the Triassic triops kits you see for sale. Put a couple of tablespoons of soil in the bottom of a hatcher, add a quart of R/O or distilled water, keep it between 70 and 80 degrees, and an amazing array of critters show up.

About 2 dozen triops hatched out along with dozens of fairy shrimp, seed shrimp, and a bunch of things I can't identify. Of course the triops are gobbling them all up. They eat each other too, so now I'm down to just three.

Anyway, consider this a positive review. BTW- the soil should stay viable for years and years. Triops eggs are known to be viable after more than 40 years. I'll be making up classroom kits for our local schools from this stuff. A pound of dirt makes a lot of kits.

iturnrocks · Post by **iturnrocks** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:21 pm

badflash wrote:Just an update. I got some native dried up pond dirt from a member here, iturnrocks, and the soil is WAY better for raising triops than any of the Triassic triops kits you see for sale.

Just a note in case anyone missed it. The dirt badflash got was not only for raising Triops in, but also contained the eggs of all the critters he mentioned.

carbon etc · Post by **carbon etc** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 7:39 pm

Wow, triops are some of my favorite animals, but up until now I hadn't come across a practical method of raising them (beyond the CYA ultra-sterile instructions on the Walmart packets). I think I'll give this a try.

I'm still not clear on what the "tea bag" is though...

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:42 am

carbon etc wrote:Wow, triops are some of my favorite animals, but up until now I hadn't come across a practical method of raising them (beyond the CYA ultra-sterile instructions on the Walmart packets). I think I'll give this a try.

I'm still not clear on what the "tea bag" is though...

The "Triassic Triops" kits come with a packet of detrius that looks like a teabag. Without something like dirts from their pond or that stuff, the triops die in a few days from some sort of fungus.

So far my 3 triops are past that point and growing fast. Started on Saturday, they are already about 3/8" head to tail and starting to dig. I'll be setting up a bigger tank for them this weekend.

I'm feeding a few grains of sinking goldfish food a day at this point. These are also a different species of triops.

Terran · Post by **Terran** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:57 am

Dang Triops have a very cool appearance....

I would raise them but a couple of things bug me about them...

1: Needing to dry the tank out totally to hatch the new eggs from your previous generation. If only there was a way to keep a continuous tank that they would continue to hatch in and replace themselves...
2:The required use of distilled water. What a pain!...I wish the eggs could hatch from water obtained from home...Is there anyway to treat tap water to make it able to hatch the eggs....dechlorinators+boiling?tap water + magic?
3: Their apparent sensitivity ...

They are probally about the coolest looking thing Ive seen raised in an aquarium...why do they have possess traits that annoy me!!

Cableguy · Post by **Cableguy** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:05 am

you could just put a bucket outside to collect some rainwater and use that instead of distilled couldn't you?

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:24 pm

You don't need to dry out the tank, just a handfull of sand, but they won't hatch in an estabished tank. They are only sensitive if you don't go along with their life cycle. Using dirt from their native pond and distilled water you set up the conditions they are evolved for when a dried up pond gets a load of water from the spring rains.

After that you just don't over feed them and just add distilled water as it evaporates. Do NOT do water changes.

I keep a load of pond snails with them. The pond snails eat extra food, and when the triops gets big enough, all but the largest get gobbled up.

They ARE really cool to watch. Everything about them is allien. You get the feel you're looking into the triassic.

iturnrocks · Post by **iturnrocks** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:04 pm

So far I havent done extensive research on this, but.....
I have hatched Triops with water boiled for 10 minutes.
I have hatched Triops with rain water.
I have hatched Triops with Tap water that I let sit for a week.
I have hatched Triops with bottled drinking water.

All of these waters have the potential for hatching Triops if you have an unlimited supply of eggs like me, but with Distilled water I constantly get much higher numbers of live specimens.

When I sell dirt to someone I only guarantee sucess if they use distilled water. Other waters may or may not work, but distilled works every time.

Future experiments may include....

Hatching Triops in Lemonade, Hatching Triops in Green Tea, Hatching Triops in Coffee.

Dont expect results on these trials any time soon.

badflash · Post by **badflash** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:30 pm

R/O water works fine too.

Triops only live 3 months, then like a switch, they just turn off. They are programmed for a single season. Their evolution stopped 200 million years ago. They have survival perfected.

They hatch within 24 hours of getting wet. They can survive as eggs for 40 years with no water. The eggs are plentiful and easily spread by wind. They eat anything, including each other. They reproduce both sexually and assexually. They can live in horrible water conditions as the pond dries up. In short, they are the perfect survival machine.

iturnrocks · Post by **iturnrocks** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 8:06 pm

Are those from my dirt? They look very different from the ones I usually get.