Triops or Sea Monkeys?

[DarkLies]

I suddenly had an epiphony! For my Science Fair Project, I can study Sea Monkeys! Then I started researching them...and researching them...then I found Triops! Triops are much more interesting looking.

Now, for my question:
For just observing their behavior, what would you suggest? Sea Monkeys or Triops?
And if there's an (very safe for the invertebrate, of course) experiment, such as "What food promotes the growth?" (given food, yeast, etc), would you recommend it?

Also, any first-hand tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

[beckyd]

I think sea monkeys are brine shrimp, which I have never hatched, but sound like a good enough subject. You could try a carnivorous diet vs a herbivorous vs omnivorous. I have hatched out the triops. The biggest one ate all the others immediately. He was kind of cool. Grew unbelieveably fast. He got sort of bug-looking and was the most hyper animal I have ever seen. Very odd. He died after 3 weeks. We didn't try it again. The kids thought it was kind of gross. They come with these little tea bag looking things that he ate through and it made a big mess in his little 1g tank. However, it was bigger than a brine shrimp and from that prospective probably easier to measure and compare differences. Brine shrimp are really tiny. They may be tough to compare to one another. PM Newman and ask his opinion. He hatches out brine shrimp all the time. If you use triops, separate several so they don't cannabalize each other and repeat each diet in maybe three different containers, so your experiment isn't jeopardized by one dying. Then take photos every day. They really grow that fast. Then they'll die and your experiment can end. If I remember right their life span is 40 days roughly.

 

[DarkLies]

Yikes, I had completely forgotten the little cannabalistic fact there, I'm so glad you brought that up!
And did the kids think it was gross that it died? or the mess that it made? or just the triop in general?
Thanks for the info and the references! I didn't think to consider the Shrimps' size either

Also, I'm curious...what type of turtle do you have?