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Re: Daphnia, yeast, and stuff

> Can Daphnia be cultured without using light and green water?  I.E. using
> potato emulsion.  I don't have space to set up anything requiring light at
> this time

	You bet! John Burns' posting moments before yours is a good example of
it. In fact our local killinuts uses a pea soup mix with his indoor
cultures. Although how much air is supplied to these cultures is
something of a controversy (I feel that some air is essential), cultures
with or without greenwater benefit from the water movement to keep
whatever is being fed in suspension. That movement also cuts down on
dead spots on the culture container's bottom. I also see a big
difference in the productivitiy between indoor and outdoor cultures even
when both are just standing water. Part of this outdoor productivity can
be attributed to air movement.

	One of the reasons many of us use greenwater, aside from the fact that
is does seem to be a good food, is that it is cheap, easily cultured in
a well lit tank (without plants but with plenty of feeding, deficating
fishes) is that it doesn't as easily cause a daphnia culture to crash by
overfeeding. Changing water in and out of a daphnia culture to
accomodate the greenwater also forces one to change the daphnia
culture's water too. (What is essential for the aquarium is also good
for the food cultures.)

	However adding other foods (feeding the other stuff is something of an
art form so as to avoid overfeeding) and air and water changes will
enable a person to raise daphnia using an amazing number of food
sources. Possibly the variety will positively impact the killies too.

	Check out Willy Jocker's old (1972) book on Live Foods For Aquaria and
Terrariums (Englsih edition TFH), Charles Masters' (TFH) Encyclopedia of
Live Foods or the Book by Needham, et al, (reprinted by Dover in the
early '60s) on Labratory Culture of Invertibrate Animals. These,
especially that last one, can sometimes be found via your local
library's listings computer. If that library doesn't have the book,
others in their inter-library lending cooperative may and would come
upon a search. Library fund raiser sales are additionally sometimes good
sources for those out of print texts.

	As for size, the bigger the better. I use a number of seasoned 30
gallon trash cans (the Rubber Maid Roughnecks). However a case can be
made for containers with relatively more surface area. I also wonder
about these Rubber Maid storage containers which are about 16 inches
tall and rectangular by a couple of feet. Bill Galligher's kiddie pools
(on clearance sale this time of the year) are a great example. Avoid
algicides and other preserving chemicals in the materials. ("Food
quality" is always the safest, but expensive.) Floor space is your major
limiting factor.

	Larger containers will generally be more productive and more resistant
to abrupt changes in water chemestry. Daphnia can be raised in gallon
pickle jars. So can killies. In both cases however the creatures we keep
will do better in the largest environments we can afford to give them.

	I wonder if anybody on this list has had experience with packing their
daphna with vitamins or the Selco food additives. These are sometimes
"packed" into brine shrimp before those shrimp are fed to aquarium or
hatchery fishes. I would assume that something similar could be done
with killies and daphnia.

				All the best,

				Scott
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