garbage to you.....daphnia

["Kinney, Travis" <kinney at pdtarchs_com>]

Let me know how your new search for daphnia goes. If it fails let me know, I
have a stand of water outback teaming with daphnia. I started by scooping
them into a shallow white porcelain pan and sucked them up one by one with a
syringe. Took awhile, but I was happy just finding some. Then I found as the
weather warmed I could go to a shallow spot where the weeds were within 1/2"
of surface, more like mucky dead field grass, push the plants down with the
bottom edge of the pan and let the water roll in over the edge. I could
plow/ push it along and let the water roll in. The daphnia would float up
into the water when I pushed the plants down. I would collect 200 or more on
each pass! Instead of collecting maybe 30 to 50 in half and hour I was
getting a 1,000+ in a couple minutes.

I haven't collected any in some time and my test to clear green water with
them failed. Do you know what I learned though? Snail like daphnia. I had a
breeder cage hanging in my 29-gallon tank (I heard if you keep the daphnia
completely submerged, at bottom of tank they will die. Don't know why. So I
used the breeder net) I don't think the net is fine enough to hold the
newborns, not sure. After a few days I noticed a snail or too moving along
the top edge of the net. I didn't think much about it and kept squirting
more daphnia into the cage. Well, after a week of not really paying
attention I looked in the breeder net and didn't see one Daphnia! I did see
about 12 snails all looking quite content.

I might try it again. My wife got tired of mason jars of green water, and
what she thought looked like fleas, sitting on the kitchen window sill.