Water for daphnia

["Tomoko Schum" <tomokoschum at earthlink_net>]

Can anyone recommend how to prepare water for
daphnia?

I just received a culture of daphnia pulex
today. It took two days to arrive from the
vendor. It was a small culture, about one
pint, in green water.
I could see only a small number of daphnia
swimming around when I got the package. The
vendor stated there should have been many
visible in the bag. I put them in a bucketful
of prepared water along with the green water
they were shipped in. The bucket held
approximately two gallons of water. The water
was prepared last night in accordance with
the method instructed by the vendor.
(Tapwater filtered through PUR tabletop
filter.) Since the water in the bucket looked
slightly green, I didn't feed the daphnia
before running out for some errands. Two
hours later, I found all of the daphnia dead.

I suppose the water was not suited for them.
But I don't think my water is very high in
chlorine, chloramine or heavy metal.
Sometimes I forget to treat the water in
which I hatch brineshrimp eggs, but the bbs
hatch and live for a few days without a
problem.

Anyway, I am getting another batch from the
vendor that should arrive on Monday.  So how
should I prepare water for them?  I can go
ahead and age the water that the first batch
died in, or I can use rainwater that has been
collecting in a bucket on my back deck
through the winter.  Alternatively, I can go
to the supermarket and get Evian to be sure
of the quality.

TIA,

Tomoko

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