[A.M. Aquatics]

I tried a little idea of raising triops about 2 years ago. I loved them from my childhood days, and wanted to break that stereotype that some people have of triops being more of "toys" than animals to keep in an aquarium. Unfortunately, because of very simple mistakes, and unintentional neglect, it didn't work out too well. Well, I found the rest of those eggs from 2009, and now I'm determined to raise and breed them.

Supplies I will be using:

1/4 gallon hatching container

4-5 gallon glass tank

aragonite sand

small sponge filter



Flora/fauna:

Java moss

Triops longicaudatus



Food:

frozen blood worms

spirulina (in some form or the other)

java moss (I've read that they will eat plant matter)

Dead plant cuttings



Other:

Porous rocks for shelter.


I've been researching breeding, and what I've found is that the females will develop egg sacks at about 3/4 inch and will bury them in sand. From there, it's just a matter of completely drying the sand with the eggs and re-hydrating it.


Anyone else attempted this? Please share your results and advice.

 

[Eden Marel]

Triops are fun! Yep most of them are hermies, and it really rare to get a completely 100% male so you'll have eggs in no time, very easy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWx0nkP0bKk


They do love bloodworms hat's for sure, and ghost shrimp. Fish food works too.

 

[A.M. Aquatics]

I was actually just watching that video while researching triop breeding. Nice vid, and thanks for the advice!

do you have any pics or vids of your tank?

 

[jasonpatterson]

Depending on the species and region your eggs are from, they could be anything from entirely female to a reasonable male/female mix. The males tend to be slightly more colorful for common triops species (you've probably got longicaudatis, though they could be cancriformis instead, a much larger variety when full grown.) They berry and deposit their eggs very often starting fairly small, a single triops will lay hundreds of viable eggs in the sand before dying.

I've been considering starting my triops again and had an idea for egg collection. The eggs are significantly more dense than water but also significantly less dense than sand. I'm thinking of an egg collector that doesn't require the tank to be drained. If you gravel vac the sand very slowly, the eggs ought to come up the tube and the sand stay below. You'd then separate out the mulm from the eggs in the collecting bucket (fairly easy, like panning for gold, basically) and run the last of the water through a coffee filter to collect the last bit that is actually the eggs. If it works, it should allow you to keep the tank going continuously rather than having to wait for the Methuselah triops to die off before getting more going. It's only really a concern the first time or two, when you have very few triops eggs to work with, I suppose.

If you have any questions, I'd highly recommend My Triops. The writer really knows what he or she is talking about.

Some things that I would suggest:
- Be sure to use distilled to hatch the eggs, you get a much much higher hatch rate.
- Take care not to overfeed the larvae/young. It takes very very little to feed them when they're small and it's quite easy to overdo it and foul their hatching tank.

 

[Bandit1200]

I have a whole "Desert Family" waiting for a home. It's a packet of eggs containing eggs of the following:

10 Triops, 10 Beavertail Fairy Shrimp, 100 Redtail Fairy Shrimp, 30 Vernal Clam Shrimp, some of Water Flea, and Seed Shrimp's eggs with basic food.

I'm waiting to upgrade the cherry tank so that I can use the 20L to hatch all these guys out!

 

[A.M. Aquatics]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to start hatching today.

 

[koldsoup]

Let us know how it goes! I've always wanted to try them out. They're such kool creatures.

 

[mordalphus]

When a triops dies of unknown causes, do you perform a triopsy?

 

[A.M. Aquatics]

lol. triopsy. Dunno about that, but it sound right lol.

 

[A.M. Aquatics]

Need your opinion. Should I hatch them outside with natural sunlight? Hatching them inside might be a bit of a squeeze right now. I know in the wild the survive in muddy water up to 100F, so I'm guessing it won't do much harm to try to hatch them on the screen porch.

 

[Eden Marel]

I've hatch them inside, next to a south facing window. Inside temp typical 80*F during day hours and maybe mid-high 70's during night to early morning.

 

[jasonpatterson]

Should work fine. They just need clean water and light to hatch. I usually just use a desk lamp, but once they're out of the egg (a couple of days maximum for the slow ones) they don't need light any more than any other aquarium critter. The eggs are photosensitive so that they don't hatch when they are buried in the mud.

 

[A.M. Aquatics]

Thinks have been going a bit slowly over the past week, so I STILL haven't hatched them yet. I will however try hatching one group inside and one outside.

 

[shrimpnmoss]

Those are some freaky Jurassic Park, horseshoe crab looking, inverts...

 

[10gallonplanted]

I want some...

 

[slash3]

my 12/13 week old triops cancriformis died just 2 days ago but the tank she was originally in is now housing my red cherry shrimp, so cant dry the sand out til my new tank is cycled and the shrimp get re homed. but i must have thousands of eggs in there!!! good luck with your triops ( i've also got a 1 week old albino cancri in a jar at the min) running out of space!!!

 

[A.M. Aquatics]

Sorry to hear that it died. Do you happen to have any pics of the alibino? That sound neat, and I would love to see it!

 

[slash3]

not yet its still pretty small and my cameras not great. ill try get one though. oh! the albino i have didn't hatch for 2 weeks or a bit more! so never just throw the hatching water away! i was drying out the container it was in when i caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye, so quickly added more water!! lol

 

[10gallonplanted]

I'm hatching some triops. They came in the mail today. They will live in 3g planted with Java fern.

 

[garfieldnfish]

I love triops. They got me into the hobby. I bought a pack 11 years ago for my then 6 year old daughter for Christmas as a "science project". But after reading that they only live for 3 months I thought they should have a good if short life and bought them a 1 gal tank with plants, filter, lights, the whole set up. On Christmas Eve, we opened the pack and read they need to be in a Mason jar with destilled water. So we had what I thought a perfectly great aquarium sitting empty. I asked my husband to go out the day after Christmas and buy some fish. He came home with 2 goldfish and a book called "Aquariums for Dummies". A better book was never written as it took only 10 minutes for us to realize we needed a much larger aquarium for these goldfish. We bought a 46 gal and from there it took off. Now I have 19 tanks and my daughter, now 17 years old, does not even look at them. Go figure. All thanks to a pack of triops, that BTW hatched and lived their 3 months in the Mason jar.