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Re: e-mail address
>>>I noticed that several people feed their daphnia sweet potatoes (baby food). ... But the question is how do you feed it?<<<
What? You didn't like the dead kitty recipe?
Here's a collection of different daphnia recipes I've saved from posts over the years. Daphnia are filter feeders, just like brine shrimp, so they can eat almost anything you feed them, as long as the particle size is small enough. That would include spirulina if it's small enough.
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WATER FLEA COOKBOOK
I blend half a bag of frozen peas, about a cup of organic beet tops -- for
variety, I substitute carrots, sweet potato, spinach, broccoli for the beets
-- don't add carrot tops or the green marks on a carrot. They contain tannic
acid -- bye bye daphnia! Persimmons, acorns, and oak leaves would also
contain tannic acid. Acidic foods like tomatoes also don't sit well. Add two
Theragran vitamin pills, or use a fish vitamin preparation as directed
instead. Blend this mixture until liquefied. If tanks are aerated, strain
through a hanky to remove large particles. If tanks are not being aerated, you
can opt to siphon out particles after they settle out. Add enough cold water
to make one gallon. Store covered in the fridge for up to about a week. Always
check the smell before you use it. It's made from veggies, so it will never
smell good, but one sniff will tell yu when it's no good. You can make it last
longer by half a cup of Reef Crystals or other high calcium artificial
saltwater mix. Keep up your water changes so the salinity does not get too
high. This recipe does not freeze well, so make a half or quarter recipe until
you get lots of daphnia going. When I go on vacation, my son thinks frozen
green beans work better than peas, so then they get beans. The important thing
is one green high protein content veggie, and a smaller amount of a yellow,
red, or simply high carotene content veggie. Feed two or three tablespoons to
a ten gallon culture, no more than will cloud the water for a few hours. Allow
to clear before feeding again. Some people add paprika, but unless you blend
it first before all other ingredients, it seems too large a particle to do any
good.
One traditional daphnia recipe is ten parts Lipton pea soup (a dry powder) and
one part Spanish Paprika. It can be sprinkled into the tank.
The most foolproof food is Tetra's Aquafauna Hermit Crab Meal. Just sprinkle
on the surface. I use it between staple feedings, 2 or 3 staple, then HCM,
then back to staple. Lately I've been using krill meal as a treat food. This
krill meal is great for small fish fry and an excellent additive to any
homemade foods such as the gelatin diet or frozen beefheart. I get it from
Florida Aqua Farms.
Green water is great food for daphnia, but it is not dependable. Just when you
think it's going to last forever, it's completely gone. I can bypass some of
the huge water changes associated with feeding green water. I put a power
filter packed with filter floss on the green water tank. I can squeeze
concentrated green water out of it several times a day.
Daphnia supposedly eat anything organic, dead squirrels, sheep manure, dried
blood, yeast, powdered milk, bacteria, etc. Not in my fishroom! Would you want
some of this stuff [1] in your house? [2] inside your fish?
The above cookbook gives you an idea of the variety of foods offered to
daphnia, but the containers used is another factor. In one sense the bigger
the better. However a 230 gallon vat under a 600 gallon tank with only inches
head room was no fun to clean out when as any live food culture eventually
does, it crashed. Picture a two inch layer of dead daphnia over a two and a
half by eight foot vat bottom. And your nose has to get right in there because
of the tank on top. Ten gallon tanks are usually the cheapest per gallon and
five fit under a four foot shop light. I leave the lights on twenty-four hours
a day, but anything over 12 on a timer will work. If you provide a short
photoperiod, they may go dormant anticipating winter. Aeration is unnecessary.
In fact, they are redder and easier for the fish to see if raised without air
stones or filters. Most strains require a cool room. The Red Daphnia strain
will reproduce well even in a room maintained like my fish room in the low
80's F. It is also possible to harvest a cup or two of daphnia every day to
feed my 50 tanks of fish.
In warm weather, daphnia could be shipped Priority mail very cheaply about
$5.00). Faster and better if the weather chills, would be Express mail to your
home or work (about $18.00). That is overnight to most locations. Air freight
is $40-60.00. UPS has a system of zones and calculations so the price can't be
guessed unless both addresses are known.
I would suggest starting with three or four portions set up slightly different
ways to see what works best for you. Daphnia prefer slightly hard, slightly
high pH water, but I use very hard, 8.3 pH water. This makes them live longer
if fed to marine tanks, and forestalls the takeover of a daphnia culture by
Cyclops, a very small live food which must be used judiciously in place of
bbs. It could damage fry if uneaten, possibly. The plus side of Cyclops is
that it encourages growth and color, perhaps better than anything. Just feed
no more than the fry can eat in a short time, but make frequent feedings.
Written by Dan McMonigle McDaphnia at aol_com
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Non-member submission from ["Albert So" <albert_so at hotmail_com>]
I keep 3 10-gal of Daphnia for feeding tropical fish.
Recently talking to a friend of mine regarding raising
Daphnia, he mentioned using baby food as a regular
feeding.
I was not so sure at first. Since I got 3 tanks of
Daphnia, I decided to use 1 to experiment. I use a
teaspoon of sweetpotato baby food and dissolve in
warm RO water. Then pour the mixture into the tank.
I repeat the process for 3 consecutive days and then
evaluate for overfeeding.
To my surprise, the Daphnia population was inceased
(qualitative). In addition, the sweetpotato was
building up on the bottom (I got snail at the bottom
to help out). However, there were also some moldy
patches starting to grow on the side of the aquarium.
I stop the sweetpotato feeding immediately to under
the moldy problem. To my surprise, snails would
plowed through the mold. As for the Daphnia, they
all got a nice red tint to them. 30% water change
was followed on subsequent day. Then after another
feeding, I did a 50% water change. During this
period, I was harvesting a good portion of the Daphnia
on a daily basis.
All in all, the sweetpotato baby food feeding actually
work real well. I have since cut back the feeding
to about twice a week (to reduce water change to bi-weekly
schedule).
My other method of feeding Daphnia was used in
other 2 tanks. It consists of green peas only.
Snails will eat the peas and the waste product will
help 'create' green water. The Daphnia raise under
such condition has a green tint on them.
Less water change is required for this method,
however, production is also lower (can only harvest
once a week).
In all 3 tanks I have a small amount of air bubbling
through for gas ex-change purpose.
I have since converted all 3 tanks to baby food regiment.
The cost of baby food method is definitely higher
than the green pea method. However, the ROI (return on
investment) should be at greater since one could get
higher production rate from the culture.
Albert
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 08:18:18 -0500
From: "Dan McMonigle" <mcdaphnia at lycos_com>
Subject: Re: Daphnia foods
Yes, Daphnia can be fed artificial foods. Yeast, powdered or skim milk, clam juice, will all work, but you have to check about two hours after feeding, and do a 20% water change if the water is not beginning to clear, or a 50 to total water change if the water is getting cloudier or smelling off. The nose is a critical tool when feeding the above items. You should have more backup cultures when using any of the above foods, since crashes happen quickly.
The algal pastes and marine green waters commercially available will work. I have used them. Some of those may add a little salt, but that does no harm to my strain. I have heard of strains that can't tolerate the least bit of salt so be cautious. The Marc Weiss products, Spectra Vital and Blackpowder, both work. Blackpowder increases the red color of the Daphnia. Krill meal is also a good Daphnia food. Spirulena powder is not absorbed well, although if it's run through the blender with water and lecithin it will be consumed better then.
However the staple diet of artificially fed Daphnia should be frozen green peas or green beans. It produces superior growth and color even compared to green water once you have developed the technique to properly estimate the feeding amount. I put a small amount of very red paprika and two Theragran+ vitamin pills in a 2 horsepower blender with a pint of water. After liquifying these ingredients I then add half a bag of frozen peas or frozen green beans. I add about one cup of raw beet root, carrot, raw sweet potato, or about twice that much fresh leaf spinach or fresh beet top, add water to cover and liquify. Do not use fruits or vegetables than contain tannic acid, such as carrot tops or the green shoulders of a carrot. You may have to add a few icecubes near the end if the liquid is getting warm. Store covered in the refrigerator. Adding a tablespoon of Instant Ocean salt mix will prolong the shelf life of the recipe. You can omit it if your strain does not tolerate salt or!
!
!
if you have a lot of Daphnia to feed. Use the cleanliness you would use for your own food in preparing, storing, and using this recipe.
I knew a local discus breeder who raised a lot of Daphnia. His methods were interesting. He put a 5 gallon plastic bucket of Daphnia under his messy birds' cage so hulls, parakeet poop, and feathers would fall in. He used blood meal and dried cow manure, products he bought at a garden store, to feed larger cultures of Daphnia. I would be nervous about introducing pathogens or waste products to my fish tanks if I used his method, but I never heard any negatives from him.
I feel that Daphnia fed my concoction may be a bit more nutritious because of their diet than anything else you can feed them. I may be wrong, but I base that on the health and growth of my fish.
====================================================================
From: "Richard J. Sexton" <richard at killi_net>
To: HQDOM1.GWIA("killies at ns1_vrx.net","richard at killi_n...
Date: Mon, Dec 27, 1999 10:48 AM
Subject: Jim Langhammer's daphnia recipe
The subject "daphnia" is used by aquarists in a very imprecise application
and questions are asked that verge on "how do you maintain a fish"? Many
aquarists think all "water fleas" are a species of the genus Daphnia. NOT
TRUE! When you collect "plankton" you may get many related crustaceans called
cladocerans, which are close relatives of Daphnia (plus ostracods, copepods,
insect larvae, fairy shrimp , etc.). In order for meaningful communication
and comparison to be accomplished, we need to level the playing field. The
many "water fleas" have very different requirements from one another and
generalizations are not possible!
My comments refer ONLY to the colony commonly referred to as Giant Russian
Daphnia (tentatively IDed as Daphnia magna) which was brought from Moscow in
approximately 1960 by my friend George Campbell. I received the colony from
George in 1963 and have distributed it widely since then. George used the
daphnia to "sweeten" the water in his basement alligator pool and harvested
daphnia to feed his fishes!
This colony has for 40 years been consistently propagated at approximately 70
degrees F. and has apparently lost its ability to enter a sexual stage and
produce resting eggs when stressed. I have occasionally heard reports that if
pond-reared outdoors it has reverted to resting eggs during the Winter. The
fishroom reproduction is accomplished by parthenogenetic females.
This Daphnia and most cladocerans require high levels of dissolved oxygen and
warm water rapidly loses its ability to carry the required level of oxygen as
the temp increases. This is why Daphnia and trout and other "cold-water"
creatures suffocate at higher temperatures. The Giant Russian Daphnia
probably will do poorly or even die out if you cannot keep the colonies
YEAR-ROUND well below 80 degrees F.! (If you know that will be a problem, try
culturing the small Japanese cladoceran Moina which is popular with
killie-keepers. It can tolerate temps into the 80's but does not seem to like
cooler waters!)
The continuing thread through most discussions of Daphnia and live-foods in
general is "why bother?" and "I have no space". Quite simply if you do not
have room and time in your fish set-up to accommodate something that will
benefit your prized fishes, then choices must be made! I strongly urge you to
empty fishes out of one or more of your coolest tanks and start cultures of
the Giant Russian Daphnia. Your remaining fishes will prosper and you may
even find considerable economy involved now that brine shrimp eggs are so
pricey!
Once you have opted to make space available, your time becomes important. You
will need to treat a HEALTHY, HIGH-PRODUCTIVITY Daphnia culture as "lovingly"
as you would your most prized fishes! You frequently see a bucket of green
water on a porch or a jar of daphnia on a window sill from which an
occasional harvest of daphnia can be secured. By contrast, a good established
20 gallon tank can give you about 1-2 cups of drained daphnia a week!
The Giant Russian Daphnia can not only be a good source of protein and a
stimulant to the natural behavior of predatory fishes but it can be a great
carrier for the color-enhancing carotenoids so important to achieving natural
color in tank-raised fishes. Plants are the original sources of pigments such
as carotenoids and xanthophylls but fishes are unable to utilize these
coloring agents until the chemistry has been altered - usually by an
invertebrate. Insects and crustaceans convert the plant pigments into useable
combinations. The Daphnia are fully capable of metabolizing paprika,
spirulina, marigold petals, carrot oils and other carotenoid-rich foods into
their own bodies so that the Daphnia become "secret" color foods to dazzle
your friends by how great your fishes look!
Now comes the work! and the reason few aquarists succeed with cladocerans in
general. Most aquarists do not give their fishes good husbandry and the
Daphnia are far less "forgiving" than the fishes! If you rate yourself as a
lazy aquarist, no need reading further.
The Steps to Success:
1. Find a culture of the Giant Russian Daphnia.
2. To an EMPTY aquarium or container (always avoid plastics!), pour in the
starter culture as you received it. If the volume is small, tip the tank up
so the culture water pools at one end. Beginning immediately and every few
hours thereafter add approximately the same volume of aged water from a
room-temperature tank in your set-up. For example: if the original culture
was a pint, add a pint now making a quart of culture. Next add a quart, to
become a half-gallon; etc. As soon as the water is deep enough level the tank
and add an air-stone for good aeration at ALL times! Daphnia are commonly
used as bio-assay organisms in laboratories because they are very sensitive
to changes in water properties - chemical toxicity leaching from plastics can
kill cultures attempted in garbage cans, abrupt temperature or pH shock
during water changes can be lethal. Try to provide a consistent stable
physical environment for the colony.
3. Daphnia should have 24 hours of light so install at least a low wattage
bulb above the tank. They are strongly phototropic and quickly swarm to a
concentation where the light is brightest. If a darkened fishroom is
illuminated slowly by sunrise for example, the Daphnia will often crowd so
densely into a corner or side of a tank near the light source that they
smother themselves much as frightened chickens are known to do in a corner.
The Daphnias' positive phototropism seems to override the suffocation
syndrome!
4. As the Daphnia culture grows you will quickly have a concentration of
organisms producing waste products, pheromones, and metabolites that will
suppress reproduction and eventually poison the culture. WATER CHANGES ARE AS
IMPORTANT TO THE DAPHNIA AS TO ANY FISH YOU KEEP! I change water on my four
Daphnia tanks - 70% EVERY DAY! This is not preferential treatment for the
Daphnia since I do similar water changes every day on many of my fish tanks
which contain high densities of immature fish! How you accomplish these
changes can be left to your own ingenuity. Siphoning the water out from
within a "cage" of fine nylon mesh wll work. You can siphon the water into a
jar, and then pour the contents through a standard brine shrimp net to
harvest any daphnia for feeding. I use a very fine-meshed commercial suction
strainer available through Grainger's - a nation-wide electrical supply
wholesaler. Replenish the water from a source of room-temperature water. I
have 55-gallon storage units of aged water and automated pumps to facilitate
my water changes but those are not requisites to culturing Daphnia!
5. FEEDING KILLS MOST DAPHNIA CULTURES! Daphnia are so sensitive to
low-oxygen levels and equally to high-carbon-dioxide levels that feeding too
much often suffocates a colony in just a few hours time. Most aquarists feed
active dry-powdered yeast to daphnia and it can be an excellent permanent
diet BUT BEWARE! it is a living culture and a slight pinch too much can
result in a "bloom" of yeast that suffocates the Daphnia! Learn to feed yeast
a TINY portion at a time until you can accurately estimate how much yeast is
consumed in 24 hours! IF YOUR WATER IS EVEN SLIGHTLY MURKY (OPAQUE) AFTER 24
HOURS, DO NOT FEED AGAIN UNTIL THE WATER IS CRYSTAL CLEAR! Few Daphnia
cultures starve to death but ALMOST ALL STARTER COLONIES ARE KILLED BY EXCESS
FOOD! I usually feed yeast about five days a week and the following cereal
formula every three to four days.
6. Most of you will be disinterested in the work load already outlined but if
you want to supplement the Daphnia for color-feeding, once or twice a week
add a small amount of the following formula to the tank but NEVER ON THE SAME
DAY YOU USED YEAST! Add equal parts of soy flour and whole wheat flour to
make a cereal base balanced for the amino acids. Buy the reddest paprika you
can find and add one part of paprika to nine parts of the cereal base. If you
have any spirulina powder, astaxanthin, or other respected coloring
enhancers, add a small amount to the formula - and mix it thoroughly. It
stores well at room temperature but try not to make supplies too far ahead of
usage date.
7. Using the afore-described formula, not only enhances the Daphnia's
nutritional value but will allow you to create additional "multi-dimensional"
cultures. With the cereal base I am also able to culture amphipods, copepods,
and a "water worm" (Dero sp.: Annelida) all cohabiting successfully with no
additional work for me. The "water worms" form mats across the floor of the
culture and give me a disease-free substitute for the popular "black-worms"
(Limnodrilus sp.) and the now disfavored tubifex worms (Tubifex sp.).
8. Don't try to cut corners! These are my "secrets" - give your Daphnia
cultures TLC and they'll give you a resounding return on the successes you
see in your fish room.
Happy Holidays to all!
Jim Langhammer
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