Triskelavus Activation

[Nehptis]

Can you pump more mana into a Trisk than there are counters, to avoid mana burn?

Meaning, if I have a Trisk in play with 3 counters, can I pay 1 mana 4 or more times but fail to remove a counter on the 4th, 5th, etc activations (since there are none left) to use up mana in my pool?

[Apollyon]

Triskelavus comes into play with three +1/+1 counters on it.
 , Remove a +1/+1 counter from Triskelavus: Put a 1/1 Triskelavite artifact creature token with flying into play. It has "Sacrifice this creature: This creature deals 1 damage to target creature or player."

Removing a counter is part of the cost. If you can't pay the cost, then you can't play the ability.

You can't activate it 4 or more times if it has just 3 counters.

[Nehptis]

Ah yes, I guess in my mind I moved the ":" to after the "1" and before "Remove".  Thanks.