The Puffer Forum

It's occurred to me that if I want to ensure that all my eggs are from the same generation, I'll have to boil my sand after each use to kill the hundreds and hundreds of eggs in it! Actually, I'm going to have to invest in a LOT more sand, maybe pool filter, this summer. Then again, black sand is much easier to see eggs in... I'm gonna have to buy expensive sand. Orrrrr maybe I could just scoop out the sand with the eggs mixed into it!

Updated pictures!

Day 32:



You can see the egg sacs as dark shadowy bits on each side, silhouetted against the carapace.




Next to my hand, for scale. I have very large hands, mind you.


Laying eggs. I swear, they're egg-laying machines. That's all they do, all day long, just lay and lay and lay!


Again for scale, that's a Tetra heater, the same one in the older picture. Heehee, they grew so much!


Nom-nomming on the moss... Their mouths are about 1mm wide.




Day 34 (today):

The one on the left kicked sand all over the one on the right. They're like the cartoon dogs that send up sprays of dirt between their rear legs when they're digging up gardens.


The sand was even when I did the water change on Sunday. They seem to have a habit of facing the left while they lay, kicking the sand towards the right, and now the sand is five times deeper on the right end. This is the left, around the flowerpot - it's almost barebottom over here.


All four triops, three of which are laying eggs...


Sometimes they dash up to the surface and flit around. If there's food floating there, they sometimes grab it and carry it back down.

Get a 55g, plant it really well. In go the triops! .

OMG, I just watched one of my triops in the final stages of shedding! The old exoskeleton was almost completely separate from the body. After the last few wriggles, it just rested, moving only its legs.

I also watched them eating their first frozen glassworms (mosquito larvae). One of them swam up and snatched a few worms, then fell onto its back and drifted to the sand, legs churning madly, worms clutched to its mouth. It laid there for several minutes, just eating, legs up in the air!

Water change and egg collection tonight! I'm guessing I got about 100 eggs. It took the triops about 30 seconds to get back into the clean tank and start laying again.

Pictures!

It's really hard to see... But I circled the shed exoskeleton in red.


And here's the crazy that's eating glassworms on his back.

OH, by the way, my T. newberryi eggs came in. Eeeeeee! I can't wait till I get into summer housing and I can start them!

Once i was checking out one of my hermit crabs (looked bad) so i shook the shell and he fell out dead . Two seconds later he crawled out of the same shell and resumed normal hermit behavior .

That was random, pufferfreak...

It's day 41. There are no major updates. They're still just laying and laying and laying and laying ALL DAY LONG. I've seen some cute antics and taken pictures which I have yet to upload. I'm going to make some gel foods tomorrow, so I'll let you know about the reaction.

I was just relating to your molting triops.

You know what would be cool? You should try breeding for longevity. Say, replace all the substrate after 60 days, and any ones alive then laying you can save those eggs for a "long life" batch. I'd expect you to be able to make some progress fast breeding for that trait, very easy to select for.

Oh, good idea!

The forum is now located at http://www.thetriopsforum.com.

Day 45: I lost one mature triops. They're well near the end of their average lifespan. (Actually, if they last too much longer, I'm going to be ticked - I have to move out soon!)

Indispensable item: brine shrimp net. Regular nets can catch and tear their tiny legs, and you can use brine shrimp nets to catch eggs if you agitate the water and stir them out of the sand.

Okay, old pictures.



Day 37:

These first two are pretty cool. Three out of the four clustered around one sinking wafer, on their sides, all eating. The fourth tried to get on top and failed.






I took pity and added another wafer. One of them jumped on it and started carrying it around. I didn't catch a picture before he got dragged down by its weight.



Random picture:





Day 38:

During their water change, I checked their size by comparing them to my hand. I have very large hands, especially for a girl, and they're as long as my index finger.



Then I fed them glassworms.



Here's the dead one. It got sort of pale and more gray.



Love this face shot.



And a random one.



I'm going to be pretty ticked off if I have to move another tank. I might wind up draining and breaking down the triops tank and putting them in the puffer setup for transportation after finals are over. The puffs never bothered the shrimp, so I think it'll be okay.

Another one died yesterday - day 52. I didn't bother to take it out until now, but... either they ate every scrap of him, or they buried him in the sand. Cannibalistic or caring?