my boys do triops 2 times a year, they love doing those things!! we use the tank water to set them up, and when we do water changes we empty the triops water, and add clean from the tank again. ours got huge last time!!
I was going to feed them to my fish, ...... my kids gave me the look of OMG mother are you insane...... !
we get the whole kit when we go see my sister at a small gift shop. costs us only 5.00 for the whole thing we put them in a small 2 gallon tank instead of the small tank they give ya, that way they have lots of room. oh and we also set it up several days in advance with a small decoration in it and leave it in the sun, to grow algal then when we go to add them we dump out the water and add fresh tank water. they love the algae and the seasoned tank water..