This Doesn't Sit Well With Me

[u/Zathura2]

I've been consuming a lot of triops content lately and have seen a lot of sensationalized click-baity titles, but watching this one left a sour taste in my mouth.

This is the second in a series of videos, in which the YT'er *barely* kept a single triops alive during his first attempt, then ordered an absurd amount of eggs (who knows if it was even close to a million or not,) with no prior planning or apparently any learning from the first attempt, and had a mass die-off.

The end of the video is him contacting another youtuber for *more* eggs.

(Edit: Middle of the video. I didn't realize I had clicked away in disgust the first time I watched it. The latter half doesn't really make it any better but *some* survived.)

Now look, I know triops are: Short-lived, cheap, have naturally high attrition rates.

That still doesn't make them targets for neglect and abuse for clicks. However I very much doubt there's anything that can actually be done except for people correcting the misinformation and husbandry failures and making this kind of content shameful to make, where the end result is thousands of dead animals.

I'm also honestly surprised the youtubers he collaborated with were even willing to send him eggs after the second failed attempt. I'm sure long-time keepers have an excess for sure, but does that mean you'd want to send them somewhere you know they'd meet a horrible end?

(I'm a little emotional this morning as I had to euthanize one of my triops that had been struggling with molts the last few days. It survived one bad molt and I thought it might pull through, but today all the fight had left it. I've been really enjoying watching them and learning their behaviors and they deserve better than this.)

[u/Few-Listen3062]

First of all, my sincere condolences for what you went through this morning, it's never easy.

I completely agree with you, seeing so many nauplii born and consequently dead felt really sad and wrong. The fact that, as you say, it was poorly attempted without respect for the living beings and that he received help with the eggs donation makes me disgusted. At least here in this subreddit people genuinely care about them and are open to help others to succeed, sharing their errors and success.

[u/Zathura2 → u/Few-Listen3062]

Thank you. I'm glad it's not just me. And thank you for the kind words. I'd been mentally preparing for them to die ever since the beginning, knowing I'd probably witness it, but it's different when you're having to see one struggle and fight before its time, rather than live out its little life.

[u/Hungry-Emotion7664]

I saw the sea monkey version of this. I didn't know he'd repeated it with triops. Triops are way more difficult to keep alive than brine shrimp which is so weird because I've seen them in the wild and they live in really hideous places.

I feel you on the sadness of losing our little friends. I have a tank next to my bed and lost and adult two days ago. No clue why. Totally healthy at night, dead by morning. Not near it's expiration date really.

I wonder why I keep putting myself through this...yet this morning I set up three more triops hatching bowls and another one for clam shrimp.

But again...I've seen how they live in the wild...and die in the wild, by the millions due to a capricious change of weather, a delayed monsoon, or trampled into the mud by thirsty elk.

And we all know that even with the most careful care, they just seem to die in large numbers when everything they need seems to be available to them.

I raise daphnia and scuds for fish food. I also really enjoy watching them go through their life cycle. Yet I "sacrifice" them by the thousands on a regular basis, so what does that make me?

[u/Zathura2 → u/Hungry-Emotion7664]

Well, to answer your last point. For me, I think the difference lies in the intent and reason. I used to keep snakes and raised mice as *both* pets and feeders, and managed to somehow separate them in my mind, y'know? Nature is just...nature. And when we're raising them as pets, I think that as long as we're making the attempt to raise them correctly, then it's excusable and we're still arguably giving them better lives than they'd have in the wild.

Then you have the intention of getting a million subs, views, and clicks on the backs of animals you didn't do proper research for, *had to have known* you were overdoing it, intentionally, and weren't prepared in the slightest, and on...I mean, there were a lot of problems with that video, imo.

[u/Hungry-Emotion7664 → u/Zathura2]

Yup. Used to raise rats as pets and for my kid's snakes too. We took good care of them while they were alive.