I have one triop and he/she was digging underneath a sea shell I had in the tank and now i dont see it, what could of happened?
How and where do triops hatch their eggs? Do they hide?
3 Responses to How and where do triops hatch their eggs? Do they hide?
I dunno if they hide. This is the info i dug up. Take some eggs, fresh water, sunlight and let them simmer for just 48hours at 22°C…
The success of triops hinges upon several key adaptations. Many of these adaptations involve their eggs. The eggs undergo an extreme form of diapause. Diapause is the halting of embryonic development, and in the case of triops eggs, they can survive completely dehydrated with no metabolic activity for years until exposed to favorable conditions again.
There are eggs that were proven viable after 27 years, and they are suspected to be able to survive much longer than that. The eggs are capable of surviving being frozen and exposed to extreme heat (although not boiling). They can even pass unharmed through the digestive tract of another animal and come out the “other end” ready to hatch. These tiny eggs can blow around with the wind as well, ready to land in a ditch puddle and colonize new territory with another generation of triops.
As if these adaptations are not enough, through a mechanism that is not yet understood, triops avoid putting all their eggs in one basket, er, puddle. Specifics vary from species to species, but the general strategy is that a small percentage of eggs can hatch a short period after being laid. This way, if the pool remains for an extended period of time, they can raise more than one generation in a single season. The rest of the eggs require at least one period of drying before they can hatch. Some of these eggs will hatch after just one such drying, but others will not hatch until two or more cycles of drying and wetting have passed. In this way, the triops hedge their bets against any given pool not lasting long enough for their children to reach maturity.
Further, the eggs have more tricks to avoid hatching in unsuitable situations. It’s not just water which triggers an egg to hatch, it’s also the osmotic pressure of that water as well as temperature and light. In a typical triops environment, the pool fills rapidly with rainwater or runoff from seasonal flooding. In this situation, the water is relatively pure, there are few dissolved minerals or organics – it has very low osmotic pressure.
Conversely, water in an established body has a high level of dissolved minerals and organics – it has relatively high osmotic pressure. Why is this important?
Triops, especially when young, lack the mobility, size, and biological weaponry to avoid any sort of predator their size or larger. An established body of water may contain fish, aquatic insects, amphibians, or even other triops which will make short work of the hatchlings. Further, an established body of water may be an older pool which will not last much longer. So, unless water conditions indicate a new freshwater body, the eggs won’t hatch.
http://mytriops.com/articles/triops_eggs.stm
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Every creature hide during parturition or egg laying to protect his off spring.
http://mytriops.com/articles/triops_eggs.stm
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If she is still unseen after a day or 2 then you should be alarmed. They swim around the place but I don’t think they are smart enough to hide when there is danger…they usually swim away from things…or stupidly swim to things.
Triops dig in the sand to lay their eggs. They lay heaps of eggs in their life time. One triops of mine produced 400 eggs in its life. I did this experiment by isolating a triops then i just counted the floating eggs after their dehydration. I did this in 10 different containers and i got 40 eggs from each (approx.)
http://mytriops.com/articles/triops_eggs.stm
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