Wild Science - Triop World

How could I forget the way Chompy used to play with his smaller brothers, chasing them around their tank for hours on end? Every couple of days, one of the brothers would vanish completely, and Chompy would do an extra-long poo to show how much he missed them.

After about 30 days, Chompy disposed of the final, equally large brother - Ripley - by eating him from the tail up. I caught the two of them playing on the bottom of the tank - Chompy had Ripley's face in his mouth, and was munching away without a care in the world. The rest of Ripley was nowhere to be seen.

Heartbroken, Chompy only lasted another week after that. For a while, he ate his fish pellets and bits of carrot as normal, but a triops is only half a triops without his playmates. Eventually Chompy turned green, and the end was nigh.

Would I repeat the experience? Maybe, but next time I would have to steel myself for the inevitable tragic end. Triops might not live long, but they've got personality. And they eat Sea Monkeys for breakfast.


Poor Fatty   August 22, 2007
Vladimir (UK)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

Its simple really, you get a packet of eggs that look like tobaco, and you pour half of them in some natural mineral water that should be inside the inclded bowl.
Wait 24 hours and half the eggs should have hatched, your told not to feed them for the next 48 hours as they will eath the eggs. When there first hatched its hard to see them but you can see little tiny white tails swimming around, and lots of them!
Soon after 48 hours they should now be clearly visable and you can now feed them with your food that was included.
One of them was huge and I decided to name him Fatty, unfortanatly even when there is enough food the Triops love to eat eachother, I remember after 5 days seeing Fatty nibbling one of my Triops, I did get quite a shock seeing as he always played with them, guessing he loved to play eat tag!

Soon they die however you still have half a pack of eggs left so you can enjoy the fun again.
I recomend this product and children would love it, my son absoultly loved them.


this is a realy fun and cool kit   December 10, 2005
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

This product realy works. The biggest one that I had was about one and a half inches. have fun!...


Short-lived but fascinating creatures   October 14, 2008
R. Boden (Coventry, UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This kit allows you to hatch and rear specimens of Triops longicaudatus, the longtail tadpole shrimp. You simply follow the instructions in the kit (it's basically a case of adding some dirt which contains the eggs into a pot of water and putting it somewhere warm and light) and the T. longicaudatus soon hatch and start growing at an almost alarming pace. The relatively short life cycle makes it an excellent teaching aid for teaching anything to do with growth and development. T. longicaudatus are fed on small pellets of fish food or diced vegetables but can (and invariably do!) eat one another. After a few weeks, you're eventually left with just one very large specimen who has eaten all of his or her brethren. Although the triops don't live for very long (6 weeks or so), they're quite low maintainance and can make a good first pet to help you see if your child would be able to cope with something a bit more long-term, such as fish. Given the short-lived nature of the triops, I don't think I can justify the price of the kit, so it's not going to get a very high overall rating from me, but in terms of educational value and fun, it's excellent!