Triops

One of the Christmas present my seven year old received this year was an awesome triops kit from the Smithsonian.  It's a kit that contains a small aquarium with sand, triops eggs, and triops food.  What's a triops?  A triops is a genus of small crustaceans whose fossils date back to 300 million years ago!

We followed the instructions, waited 4 days, and nothing!  I sort of expected this.  For the successful triops hatching, the water needs to be relatively warm, not dropping below 72 degrees Fahrenheit.  We didn't read this part of the instructions until after dropping the eggs in.  Doh! With winter upon us, the house temperature is less than 72 degrees.  

So now what?  Although we failed at growing triops, we learned a valuable lesson about the conditions triops need in order to thrive.  We still have a half packet of eggs left, so when summer arrives and the house temperature exceeds 72 degrees, we'll try again and hopefully have more success.