Triops

[hermitcrabcare]

I have a question, and I need an answer asap.

I got the Smithsonian 'sea monster' kit, and my triops are doing great. ^^ I fed them the pellets though, and they refuse to eat them. Plus, in just one day, the pellets started growing white, long hairs from every side!!! It's disgusting!

Does anyone know what's going on?! What should I do? Take the pellets out?

Thanks so much,
Kim

 

[three-fingers]

Though you've already acted, what happened was you fed the full sized pellets too soon, the triops were consequently unable to eat them, and they started to decay - the white stuff being fungus/mould/bacteria - and realeasing toxic ammonia into the water that could easily kill the triops if the levels get too high.

I'm unfamiliar with the 'smithsonian' kit, but somehow I doubt it came with an adequately large 'tank'.

Triops are very messy creatures, and with off-the-shelf triops kits they very often die prematurely due to the bad water conditions found in the small tanks. Ideally you should have 1-2 litres per adult triops, with as large a tank bottom as possible to avoid them bumping into each other and indulging in a little cannibalism.

You can very, very easily get away with smaller volumes of water if you provide extra water changes or a small air-driven filter - triops are very tolerant of bad water conditions, able to live and breed in situations that would kill even the resilient goldfish.

However obviously ammonia isn't good for them, and they live longer and subsequently grow bigger with better water conditions.