Last time I posted I was waiting for my triops in my triop kit to hatch. They never did - that I saw but I learned a couple of things.
First I was over complicating the whole thing. Triops need a very low TDS to hatch which means that cycling the tank before they hatch is near impossible. Plus when they hatch they are so small that having a cycled tank is pointless anyway. Their bioload is so tiny that even in a pint glass it would be like a single tetra in a 50 gallon tank. In a 30L tank all they really needed was to be left alone.
Anyway, that was a learning experience so I ordered some new eggs from ebay and got the european species "cancriformis" that is more comfortable with lower temperatures and grows larger.
I set up a bowl on top of the tank with a light and put in mostly pure RO with a small jug full of old tank water from the tropical tank. Left it a day and then poured in the new eggs.

A week later some triops where born, last week I thought they'd all died before growing.
This was followed by the growing on tank becoming overgrown with algae and last weekend by my marine tank sump return malfuctioning and 30 gallons of water ending up on the dining room floor. The fish are ok but the Cowrie hasn't moved since so I need to go check him out as soon as I've finished typing this... tomorrow I'm fitting a new laminate floor (the tank itself is mounted directly onto the concrete so at least I don't have to get under it!

Overall I've been feeling pretty fed up about all this but just this afternoon as I was about to tip out the grotty bowl of water I spotted a 0.5cm triop lazing at the surface. Some good news at last
The newborns where smaller than the sand at the bottom of the bowl and so despite my best efforts proved impossible to photograph. Actually I do have some images with tiny white specs on them that may be the baby triops but here is a photo of the 0.5cm one today.

I put the adding of triops on hold as I wanted to run some chemistry experiments on the tank first. Results on those still to follow but I've done a few water changes and the water is now clear.

I have found that the exceptionally soft water required for the triops is resulting in difficult keeping the PH from crashing. With the additional chemical activity of the plants and the ammonia starting a cycle the ph drops low, the cycle stalls and it all goes pete tong. Lucky this is all being discovered before adding the triops. To counter this I have chosen to increase the KH and TDS of the tank a little. I am now holding a PH of 6.4 - 6.6 and a TDS of close to 200.

To answer a couple of questions posed on the last blog entry,

1. I have some egg cysts left over from a couple of years ago, I know they are good at surviving drought (~sp.) but do you think they would still be viable?
Triop eggs are amazingly resilient and can be viable after decades. It will depend on how they've been kept, hopefully dry and cool. The only way to know is to try it out.

2. How big do they get?
That depends on the particular species of Triop. I've been told Triops inhabit every continent and climate, the largest being the european (Triops cancriformis) and grow to over 4" plus tail. The UK has triops however they are an endangered species so collecting from the wild is a definite no-no. Normally the ones you get in kits are from one of a few species that grow to around 2" (plus tail). Once you learn the species names ebay makes it easy to get the ones you're after.


I promise there will be triops in the next instalment of this triop blog!