Hi my friend wants to purchase some triops. I'm writing this because she doesn't have a computer at her house. Whell anyway she wats to buy some of those triops but she has some questions like what would you feed it, exc. Does anybody no anything about them or has anybody owned them before? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

Hope this link helps:
http://www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical-Discussion/80152/http-www-fishforums-net-index-php-showtopic-80152/

Ask any question away! I'll have an answer for any triops related question by tommorow evening-but now im off to bed*yawn*.

Oh and make sure you read the bottom post in the Triops profile-alot of the info in the first post is just downright wrong .

Goodnight!

That link did help. Thank You

Okay I'm confused now about what info is right and what is wrong. I kind of think the bottom is right because I've never heard of a triops getting 6 inches big nor have I heard of one living 150 days.

listen to 3 fingers lol

OK I will

Thank you everybody for the help I just have 1 question. Is it okay to used bottled water like poland springs or would it be better to use ddechlorinated water? And how long do you have to leave the light on for? THanks again everybody

I used spring water and it was okay, but I suppose distilled water will give you the best hatch rates. I left the light on for three days straight, though the booklet that came with my triops kit says they'd need 48 hours.

I got a pretty good hatch rate with distilled water. 15 triops hatched in a 2.25 gallon tank. As for the light, I can't remember how long I left it on initially; maybe 3 days or so. I have read that they don't need light all the time and that a day and night cycle actually causes them to grow faster. Not sure if that is true, but after they grew a bit, I only turned the light on during the day or when heat was needed. After about a month and a half, they all died simultaneously. =( I still have no idea how/why that happened. But they were interesting creatures. More interesting than sea monkeys. xD

When i kept them I had them under a table tamp on a shelf. I left the lamp on all the time and they lived fine. Evian spring water worked well but its best to boil it and let it cool down before using it. You will then need to keep using it when you change there water. Change water as it gets dirty. I used to do 50% changes and they coped with it. The thing that seems to kill them easy is over feeding. This is really important as this was my downfall after 2 months of keeping them. Tip......Don't feed when drunk as in the morning you may find they have all died. They will not hatch until the water is warm enough so the lamp close enough to keep water warm. The instuctions should tell you the temp needed for hatching. The first feeds should be the food supplied crushed into powder. Again..follow the food amounts to avoid death. They are really easy to over feed. Hope this helps.

PS They grow at an unbelievable rate.

Spring water is fine, and you can use dechlorinated tap water(using stress coat or other water conditioner) for water changes after the triops are around 1cm, just make sure you very slowly acclimatise them to the water over a few days by adding say a cup at a time.
If you use spring water instead of deionized or distilled water, buy the brand of water on the shelf that has the lowest dry residue content. This simulates a newly filled epidermal pool better and will result in more triops

I left the light on for 3 days and they hatched around 18 hours after adding the eggs and debris.

Hope i was some help .

Oh thank you so much everybody, expessialy 3 fingers. You were all such a great help.

i dont mean to try to hijack the post, but i'm, glad i found somewhere where there is info o nthese things, i've been wanting to get some for a while and didnt want to mess them up. i know in the states you can buy these little kits in wal*mart. but anyways this thread is going in my favorites section of my browser for sure for futer refeence thanks for posting the thread fish-r-fancy and thanks for the info three-fingers

It was a pleasure to help . My favourite site about triops is mytriops.com. It tells you basically everything you need to know, and more! There are also several triops yahoo groups(the best is 'Triops Forever' hundreds of active users) and a triops webring called 'totally triops' for anyone looking for more information. However if anyone has any more questions, i will be more than happy to help .

hi i just got some triops and i read information on the internet from mytriops.com/ and triops forever but i have a few questions that i couldn't find a question for. cani add sand before adding the eggs? and if th etemperature drops a little would there be a problem and i read that i have to cycle the larger tank befire adding my triops to a larger tank. what exactly is cycling a tank and how to do so. plz reply anyone

No problem.

Yes .

Depends how much 'a little' is, and what species. I'm going to guess its T.longicaudatus, in which case I know from experiance they can easily survive temporary temperature drops down to 15 degrees celcius, but anything under 10 degrees celsius will kill them.
There's not much published on temperature tolerance so that's all I know.

If it's a very large tank (in triops terms, say 10 gallons), then I woudent bother cycling as with only a few triops it will probably cycle itself before there's any signifigant ammonia buildup. Triops are especially hardy to ammonia, nitrite and nitrate when compared to fish anyway.

It's always a safer idea to cycle the tank, but tbh it's alot of effort to go through just for triops - with some methods it could take longer than the triops lifespan if you are unlucky.

If you have another fish tank that is up and running, take a little bit of the filter media out ond put it in the triops tank filter.
If you don't have another tank, just add this stuff here to the triops tank when you add the triops (make sure its that stuff, not just any brand).

Other than that, I wouldent bother cycling the tank. Just do water changes and you'll be fine.

For info on cycling, go here or here.