Triops

My sweet husband is so excited about our latest "pet" that he has regressed to boyhood.  We bought Triops at Hobby Lobby last week.  What are Triops, you ask?  Prehistoric fish.  Creepy looking ones with three "eyes".  They truly lived during the time of the dinosaurs!  They look like a fish version of a horseshoe crab.  And my husband checks the Triops bowl between 18 and 53 times a day to see how many have hatched from their "larvae" and what they are doing now.  He's obsessed!  And funny.  And I don't know who is more excited about the Triops - Jim or the kids!!

The Triops Habitat

Here's their bowl.  With a few rocks, a slice of carrot (because the instructions claim they grow "faster and bigger" if you ad a slice of carrot. And a tea bag of what I call "pond scum".  --Apparently it is some icky natural stuff that helps condition the water properly for the delicate prehistoric creatures. 

Seriously?  These guys survived from the time of dinosaurs, they can be dry and dormant for 25 years, but they need a spring water, a carrot, and a bag of pond scum to hatch in a bowl?

But hey, we follow directions in this house!  So it's all in there.

The Larvae

So, after buying the right water for these creatures, setting up the bowl and properly conditioning the water for 24 hours, we dumped in the "larvae" (the official term for the eggs that were only as big as a grain of salt).

(Jim had just come in from mowing the lawn in 105+ degree heat...  he's a little sweaty, but still took time to do this for himself...uh, I mean, for the kids...right?)

Checking out the eggs.

First Baby Picture

So, after 36 hours of waiting, Mommy's eagle eyes found the first baby Triops swimming in the bowl!  It was just as small as the tiny larvae.  Later on Saturday we saw baby Triops #2.  And Jim managed to get him to smile for a picture!

See the tiny white spec in the middle of the picture?  The one just in front of the black rock?  That's our baby Triops!  --Told you it was no bigger than a grain of salt!!

Jim's New Obsession

So, as I said at the beginning of this post...  Jim is Obsessed.  And thrilled.  We've been talking abou getting Triops since we saw them at the AZ Science center almost a year ago! 

Feeling guilt over all the attention he has been giving the Triops, I just heard Jim say to Carter's fish, "We still love you Super Betta."