Little Baby Triops

For my birthday, Summer and Glen got me Triops. I thought it was a joke at first because I had never heard of anything like this. They said that you stick it in water and the eggs hatch and they grow into little animals that swim around and are fun to watch in the water. I was thinking they got me a new bath toy, like the sponge toys you stick in water and they "grow."

Anyway, I figured out what they really are soon after and have been waiting for the perfect time to start taking care of them. I wanted to be sure I wasn't going to leave on vacation for a week and cause them to die while I was gone. I got this little scene set up for them and we put them in the water Friday night at midnight. The light is shining on it to keep the water at the right temperature. It also says to put some foil to make a shady place for them. I decided to just cover the top with foil for the shady place, and to make sure nothing foreign falls inside. (These are sensitive little guys.)

This morning I just noticed one of them has hatched! It's too tiny to take a picture of. It would just look like a speck in the water, but if I watch closely I can see the little tiny thing moving really fast in the water! It doesn't move around a lot, it just moves really fast in a tiny space. Fun! I can't wait til more hatch and they start growing more. I'll put up pictures when they get big enough to see.