Giant Triops species?

[Swords]

[Ollie Mengedoht]

Hi Swords,

I don't know if anyone on our board keeps Triops spp. I would advise You to ask Timm Adam: http://www.evertebrata.de/ – he knows very much about these species and keeps many of them. He's a member here but doesn't read often and much so it might be better to email him directly.

[Palinurus]

Hi

I haven´t yet kept the Triops, but I guess, that the european form is less hard against changing of water parameters like temperature or pH than the american Tr. longicaudatus, whose "eggs" are sold here, too. That shows, that´s easier to breed the american guy than the european one. And the last one isn´t so much found, and the region are often reservations or have another grade of protection. But it lives as well in ephemeric pools under always changing, even extreme conditions. But the climate is more moderate than in the US.

Cheers
Wolfgang

[Timm Adam]

Hello Swords,

first of all I would like to write that I prefer to have a name I can address to. Might be a bit out of date but that´s the way I am........

Those are alot of questions and I try to publish articles in magazines to answer them for a broader audience; so far only in German but that might change sooner or later. As I keep getting quite some E-mails with questions regarding invertebrates through www.everetbrata.de I have stopped answering them in all details. I tell people to read some printed matter dealing with the animals they are interested in before they start to ask questions in forums and so on. The main problem with the internet is that you get the illusion that you can read and find everything online but the truth is that you get a load of rubbish in the end, especially when it comes to "giant" or "extremely rare" species of invertebrates.

To answer some of your questions: Triops australiensis australiensis does not exceed 100 mm in the wild or anywhere. Mine usually get 65 mm, maybe a bit larger and that´s it, I dont think that anyone has found specimen that are longer than 85 mm anywhere in Australia. Triops cancriformis cancriformis does get up to 110 mm but I have never seen such a specimen from a hobbyist breeder. So far I did have some who were around 85 mm long.

How long Triops lives depends on the location and the biotope they live in. They can grow to adults and produce "eggs" very, very fast (I had Triops cf. newberryii from Australia that went from 0 to 75 mm in 10 days) and the same species is able to adapt to completely different conditions. It is true that the forms from desert-like habitats tend to grow faster and thus have a shorter life-span but T. longicaudatus is also a very diverse species. I think the longest running species is still T. cancriformis cancriformis as I have kept them for several months.

Water: Again it depends on the original habitat where they originate from. There are forms that don´t want any salts in their water and there are forms that really need some elements in the water rigth from the start. Both species/forms you have do hatch here at my place with distilled water. But I have to add that I also use around 5-10 kg of sand also right from the start in the aquaria. The trick is to not change the water or at least not a lot of it. Such the originaly totally desalineted water forms into a water that contains a lot of salts of different kinds and of course a lot of other stuff as the Triops grow/eat and sh.. in(to) the water. It is absolutely not needed to add anything to the water. You just have to simulate the normal process in the natural habitat. To get T.c.c. to bigger sizes you might try to keep the temperatures low. If they live long enough you should change some of the water occasionally and use a sponge filter to control the water quality. But all this depends on the size of the tank, how many Triops will be in there, how and what you feed them, where it is located and how much sunlight it gets, and, and, and..........Basically it is true to say that the bigger (for the ground area of the tank) is the better. This you understood correctly.

Maybe you start to understand that everything is extremely special and diverse dealing with Triopsidae and you won´t get exhaustive answers in a short term.............

Kind regards

Timm