Toyops Triops Space Age Tank

I wish this tank came in a larger size, with some modifications it could catch on as really great aquarium i hope the company reads this and takes the hint. the entire kit turned out to be great (if only it came with sand, plastic plant, Etc.) it makes for a cool conversation piece and addition to any room.

My son was so disappointed when he opened this today to discover that EVERYTHING which was supposed to be included except the tank was missing. No eggs, no food, no thermometer, no directions! I intend to contact the manufacturer first thing Monday morning.

This taught me a valuable lesson. Don't belive what they say on the discription. From all those eggs, I got 1 or 2 and didn't last a week.

You have to have the exact conditions to raise these little fellas, frustrating and a waste. My son was very disappointed.

Great tank for young experimenters. It has everything you need to start a space age Triassic tank.

For those of you who are used the the ease of SeaMonkeys/Brine Shrimp. These are significantly harder to hatch and maintain.

Ordered this for a Christmas gift for our son, who was more than thrilled to receive it. What we didn't realize is that this is one of the most complex projects you'll have to deal with. You need to have a temperature controlled environment to get the eggs to hatch (not easy to do over the worst winter months unless you want to up your gas bill), and need to have a light on them all the time to keep the temperature up (do you own this light? Where can you leave a light on 24/7 that it won't bother anyone? Will you be away for a day or 2?) I think a puppy might be less work. Oh, don't forget the special water you need to get too. Major disappointment for him, as there was no way we were going to be able to get these things to hatch in December-March. Open and read all the directions before you gift it so you can have EVERYTHING you need on hand in advance, and be prepared to spend a day prepping all the pieces and paying attention to the feeding and nurturing schedule required! The tank pieces are fairly flimsy, so be sure not to drop it or let anyone bump into it.

We only got a couple to actually live and swim. the rest died. this is every interesting and fun. I recommend this as a gift for 10-14 year olds.

This is an awesome product. Having a hard time to get the little buggers to live more than 5 days, but I'm facing it like a puzzle, where you have to get the conditions right to succeed, just like everything in real life. You mess up, they give you their life in sacrifice, since they can't communicate. It's their way of saying you messed things up. I'm pretty sure I killed them by overfeeding, causing a bacterial spike. Enough eggs in the kit though, and the manufacturer will ship you more eggs for postage fees only if you don't succeed with the eggs provided. Customer support seems great.I'm on my third attempt now and apparently I got things right this time. I bought two bunches of an aquarium plant with thin spike-like leaves and put it in the tank with the mineral water. I cut out the roots from one of the bunches so that the leaves turn brown and detach from the branch, falling off to the bottom of the tank. That takes a few days to happen - like a week or so. When I had enough leaves to cover the bottom of the hatching container I did that, filled in the hatching container with water from the tank and covered the bottom with the dead plant leaves, then added the eggs. The hatching rate is not great, 20-30%, but that's the way it is I think, or has to do with the water I used. Anyhow, after the eggs hatch don't feed anything for 3 days. The tiny triops will survive off protozoans that live on the plant leaves and will be happy exploring the bottom of the container. I fed a single pellet of vegetarian fish food (spirulina-based) on the third day because I was afraid they could starve and they are doing well with that, and it didn't cause the water to get cloudy like what happened the other 2 times. I had to buy fish food because I ran out of the food that came with the kit, also I wanted to try something I could get off the shelf on the pet store.I've put the dead triops on a microscope slide and have been analyzing it with a cheap microscope I had lying around here, so even dead these creatures can still provide fun. The kids love it. They were bugging me into buying a cat and I got this instead, great deal. And 5 days into the experiment they had already learned about life-and-death cycles. They are all the time cheering for the little triops to get through and survive. And finding them with the magnifying glass is a nice challenge, I can be there for a long time looking at them swimming around and crawling.The tank is nice and I think you can still use it as a small aquarium with fish and stuff if you get sick of the triops.Great purchase!***UPDATE!***They died. Again. Still fun.

Parfait