Another great photo

This is my best yet of a clam shrimp- Cyzicus species. Sorta looks like he has teeth. Hes just under 1/2 inch long.

Beautiful! Are you raising them? I never can get them to live long in captivity.

Awesome Pic!!!! I've caught these before but they never last more than a day for me. Do you do anything special for them????

Beautiful! Are you raising them? I never can get them to live long in captivity.

Same question as above. Do you ever see reproduction in the aquarium?

I love the picture, and the shrimp looks plain awesome.

Reproduction requires a dry cycle. This species lives about 6 months. Then I will drain the tank, dry the substrate for a couple weeks, then add new distilled water. There are some species of clam shrimp that only live 2 weeks.

Reproduction requires a dry cycle. This species lives about 6 months. Then I will drain the tank, dry the substrate for a couple weeks, then add new distilled water. There are some species of clam shrimp that only live 2 weeks.

Whoa. Cool. So they lay their eggs like triops?

What do you feed them? Or are they filter feeders?

I really dont know much about them. I drop in some betta pellets about once a week or so, but I also have daphnia, ostracods, snails, and aquatic plants, so I dont know who benefits from it the most. I have never seen them eat or be interested in the pellets. If I had to guess I would say they are most likely filter feeders. I hatched these in January and up until this month they have seldom moved while I was watching. They tend to hide in the substrate most of the time, but as they get older, they are much more active, and swim around a lot more. I hope this means they are dropping eggs, since I have yet to get a second generation. These 2 were hatched from wild caught soil, and the one I had last year was collected wild as an adult. At least this time I may find out a more accurate lifespan.

Here is a new photo- you can see the eggs in this one.

Wow! Awesome picture!

Wow! Awesome picture!

Thank you, cleaning the tank really helped. Also I have a better camera now too.

Need to move that critter to a tank where you can harvest those eggs and attempt to hatch them seperately!

I've still got some of your dirt...but haven't managed to get the triops to adulthood to reproduce(tried 3 times). Is only 1 needed?

Need to move that critter to a tank where you can harvest those eggs and attempt to hatch them seperately!

I've still got some of your dirt...but haven't managed to get the triops to adulthood to reproduce(tried 3 times). Is only 1 needed?

That critter is in a tank with 10 of his own kind.

You can get eggs from one Triops since this population is hermaphrodites.

I would need a better description of what you have done before I could guess what you are doing wrong.

Usually people do too much. These things live in big mud puddles. They dont have filters, or airstones. I have had a few grow to adulthood when I put a tank outside. No care, rain filled it up, and they hatched from dirt left on the bottom.

Try 1 & 2
Sweater box container...about 1 gal of distilled water, a little tank water to add more buggies and a bit of java moss. Several days later some life. Added a few fish food pellets. 2 Triops hatched, one dissapeared, soon followed by the other

Trial 3 was the same but I added greenwater. Got a triop to almost full grown (dime sized) then killed it when moved to a new tank with tankwater.

I put some rewet-dirt into a tub pond and got a huge clam shrimp like yours and a fairy shrimp too. But no triops.


About how dirty do they want the water? I suspect trials 1-2 were too clean. Trial 3 was probably just right until I moved the triop.

Oh...you never told us how you bred fairy shrimp! I can get yours to about a centimeter or so in a few weeks. But no signs of eggsacs or anything as seen on Artemia.

Edited by critterguy, 09 June 2008 - 02:46 PM.

Try 1 & 2
Sweater box container...about 1 gal of distilled water, a little tank water to add more buggies and a bit of java moss. Several days later some life. Added a few fish food pellets. 2 Triops hatched, one dissapeared, soon followed by the other

Trial 3 was the same but I added greenwater. Got a triop to almost full grown (dime sized) then killed it when moved to a new tank with tankwater.

I put some rewet-dirt into a tub pond and got a huge clam shrimp like yours and a fairy shrimp too. But no triops.


About how dirty do they want the water? I suspect trials 1-2 were too clean. Trial 3 was probably just right until I moved the triop.

Oh...you never told us how you bred fairy shrimp! I can get yours to about a centimeter or so in a few weeks. But no signs of eggsacs or anything as seen on Artemia.

If you are getting low on dirt and you want to make sure you have reproducing Triops, go full dirty/muddy which they love. I have always had the best results with dirt on the bottom or dirt/sand, but you cant see them once they get big unless they are next to the glass, because they stir it up so much.

Best way to get fairy shrimp to mature is to give them direct sunlight, and of course keep them separate from Triops so they dont get eaten. Also some sort of screen so birds dont eat them. I have a flower container on my patio that I put dirt in and just let it rain in, and I had fully mature Triops and fairy shrimp within about 2 weeks. I think it may get a little too warm there with full sunlight, but at least some of them have survived. I even had at least one beavertail fairy shrimp in that batch, but the water was cloudy from the mud.

Key to water changes- dont do water changes- only add new water- and only a little at a time. For my indoor tanks I have a 16 oz solo cup with a bunch of tiny holes drilled in the bottom, and I fill it up with tank water and hold it over like its raining. Better to do this once a day than to add a gallon all at once. Also adds some oxygen when splashing in.

Triops will enjoy some live plants, fairy shrimp not so much because they just get in their way. duckweed is the easiest plant I use in outdoor containers because it provides shade and grows fast. Just make sure you dont let it take over if you have fairy shrimp, because they need sunlight. I usually let it cover about half, then start scooping it out. I also usually have some hornwort (which I find in ponds). It adds oxygen to the water and grows fast too. Just watch out for hair algae- Triops may eat it when adults, but just about everything gets trapped in it when small.

For best results with Triops youre gonna want at least a 10 gallon tank. Dont need to fill it up all the way, but this will help them get away from each other better. One of the biggest killers of Triops is other Triops. Sort of like crayfish, you put a bunch in a tank, and you will end up with 1 big one eventually.

If I actually had a yard, I would have kiddie pools lined up with various inverts growing in them. Just watch out for birds.

Just added a 10 minute clam shrimp video on Youtube. Also featuring fairy shrimp, tadpole shrimp, larval salamander. This video shows mating behavior of clam shrimp. Starts out with a 3-some 2 males on 1 female. This is the first video Ive made that I edited with video software, I added some music, someday Ill figure out how to correctly output the video so its as clear as the original.

Looks like a perfect office pet!

Neat animal

I changed the video to add opening and closing credits.

Its here now