Re: [Live-foods] Daphnia culturing, was Daphnia & water treatments

[Scott Davis <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

The snails are an interesting idea in a Daphnia culture. Drop a couple of pea shells in for them, while popping the cooked peas out and crushing them for selected fish.
 
I wonder if a sponge filter would take out too many microscopic critters (bacteria to protists) that the Daphnia feed upon. I prefer the wind outdoors or a count-able stream of bubbles from a piece of hard airline tubing indoors. I'm sure that you, David, are aware of the danger of over aerating, but for the benefit of someone looking on, if very many small bubbles (as from an airstone) get under the edge of Daphnia carapaces, then they can float helplessly at the surface and may even perish.
 
Probably could even put the hard airlines on the gallon jars but the odd jar gets placed where ever it can here and I haven't gotten an external source of air to them. ;)
 
If anyone is considering trying to culture Daphnia for the first time, plan on at least two cultures. As with all live food cultures, it is all too common for one to crash and we should cover our bets. The larger the container they are kept in the better. As with Aquaria, larger ones are usually more stable in terms chemistry and temperature. They don't need to be really deep. Without fairly strong aeration, I wouldn't try a plastic trash can inside.
 
Outdoor cultures can be fed more items, some of which we might be hesitant to feed indoors. I try and just culture greenwater indoors for the Daphnia. Feeding it is almost idiot proof. (If the shoe fits...) Coincidentally this came up today on the phone. Mentioned one of my favorite arrangements was that of Romeo Mura. Romeo had set of a 55 and 30 gallon tanks on a stand. He placed several large (extra male) cichlids in the well lit and aerated 30. Between the light, on maybe 14 hours and the waste material from the well fed cichlids, the water would turn quite green.
 
Maybe 5 to 10 gallons at a time was siphoned out (in a not too wide hose) from the Daphnia tank above through a fine mesh net. One might stop and remove the Daphnia from time to time, so that they were more likely to survive. If the culture wasn't yet really going, some or all of the Daphnia could be returned. Then 5 or 10 gallons of green water would be siphoned out of the aqaurium below into a bucket and dumped into the Daphnia tank. Probably 50% of the water could have been removed from the cichlid tank daily. With all of those nutrient the protists making up the green water multiply very fast. And with those water changes and feedings, the mature Daphnia were probably releasing young on a daily basis for most of the three weeks or so of their adulthood.
 
By the way, I'd bet that adult Daphnia could take newly hatched mosquito larvae. Considering the number of egg rafts on the surface of outdoor cultures, relatively few large mossie larvae appear in blooming cultures.
 
Was visiting a killienut who was keen on putting a little salt in all of his tanks as a preventative for velvet. (I would rather not do that with our mineral laden water.) In each fry tank or shoe box he would leave one Daphnia to "polish" the water. When some recently hatched BBS (baby brine shrimp) were added, the fry soon had round tummies with a bit of an orange hue. The Daphnia were even more orange. And newly hatched mosquito larvae are much smaller and softer than bbs.
 
All the best!
Scott

--- On Tue, 11/25/08, David Lains <davidlains at gmail_com> wrote:

From: David Lains <davidlains at gmail_com>
Subject: Re: [Live-foods] Live-Foods Digest, Vol 47, Issue 3
To: unclescott at prodigy_net, "Live foods for aquarium fish" <live-foods at actwin_com>
Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2008, 10:30 PM

Hi Scott

No the offspring were random and likely due to the condition of the  
adult animal.  The population just had a large batch of babies so  
only some of the females were ready.

All I need was to know cloramx was doing it's job and not hurting the  
bugs.

What we should look at is the dose and how long a culture goes before  
getting to foul.  With fish you can dose up to 10x safely so if you  
pushed the amquel dose maybe you can get the culture denser by  
binding the ammonia.  This is the principle the rotifer machines work  
on.

I'm actually considering putting little sponge filters and snails in  
the jugs to keep the water quality up.

The food I use are very rich and there is a very fine line between  
speeding up the culture and crashing it.

Best fishes
David
www.goldfishgarage.com



On Nov 25, 2008, at 6:50 PM, Scott Davis wrote:

> Thank you for taking the trouble to try those combinations. Is  
> there any correlation between a high or low CloramX level and  
> dropped offspring?
>
> Since that is set up, could a little greenwater be added and the  
> young counted in a day or so? Easy for me to ask, you are doing the  
> work. :)
>
> Thanks and all the best!
> Scott
>
> --- On Tue, 11/25/08, David Lains <david at zebrafish_org> wrote:
> From: David Lains <david at zebrafish_org>
> Subject: Re: [Live-foods] Live-Foods Digest, Vol 47, Issue 3
> To: "'Live foods for aquarium fish'"
<live-foods at actwin_com>
> Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2008, 1:24 PM
>
> Hello
>
> CloramX does not kill Daphnia magna in my soft water.
>
> Well 1 got 1 ml (100% of solution)  LIVE 4 offspring
> Well 2 got a finger tip of dry powder Dead along with 2 off spring.  I
> suspect a similar amount of salt would have killed them too.
> Well 3 got .1 ml Living
> well 4 got .2 ml Living
> well 5 got .3 ml Living
> well 6 got .4 ml Living
> well 7 got .5 ml Living
> well 8 got .6 ml Living but slow (maybe an old daphnia)
> well 9 got .7 ml Living
>
> About half of the cells have a few offspring in them.
>
> Best fishes
> David
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: live-foods-bounces at actwin_com [mailto:live-foods- 
> bounces at actwin_com]
> On Behalf Of David Lains
> Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 12:45 PM
> To: Live foods for aquarium fish
> Subject: Re: [Live-foods] Live-Foods Digest, Vol 47, Issue 3
>
> Hi Lee
>
> I'm wondering if your info on amquel killing daphnia was for amquel
> plus or someone was using amquel but did something else to kill their
> culture.  I'd say 1/2 of the facts on the net are derived this way.
> I did this and that and it kill them...  must of be the "This"
that
> did it.
>
> I put 9 Daphnia magna each in one ml wells.  Made up a solution of
> cloramX that was 1 teaspoon per gallon.  The first well got 100% new
> solution, the next was culture water and I dipped my wet finger in
> the powder and put that much in the well.
>
> For the rest of the wells I added the following about of solution and
> enough culture water to fill the well to 1 ml.
>
> Well 3 got .1 ml
> well 4 got .2 ml
> well 5 got .3 ml
> well 6 got .4 ml
> well 7 got .5 ml
> well 8 got .6 ml
> well 9 got .7 ml
>
> 3 hours later they are all swimming fine.  The well that I added the
> powder directly to gave birth to two offspring.  Could be due to
> stress from the conductivity change or simply the chemical.
>
> I'll run this out to one day and report the results.
>
> Best fishes
> David
> www.goldfishgarage.com
>
>
> On Nov 23, 2008, at 9:15 AM, LeeH920226 at aol_com wrote:
>
>>
>> In a message dated 11/23/08 12:02:27 PM, live-foods- 
>> request at actwin_com
>> writes:
>>
>>
>>>
>>> CloramX which is the old amquel.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I was told that Amquel killed daphnia.
>>
>>
>>
>> Lee Harper
>> Media, PA
>>
>>
>>
>> **************
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