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Re: Daphnia
> Regarding growing daphnia. We have limited space but would like to
> keep this culture going into the winter.
I obtained a small bag 1 or 2 quarts of water and daphnia from a
local fish store (hobbiest out of a basement and the best fish I've
ever seen). I divided it up between ten quart jars and a 3 gallon pot
all inside and a 25 gallon trash can outside. The jars and pot sit
on a southwesterly windowsill.
The outside culture bombed.
The quart jars and the 3 gallon pot are all doing very well.
Mostly they eat the algae and possibly infusoria(sp?) that grows in
the jars but about once or twice a week I dump in a small (2 drops
maybe) amount of yeast and water mix. I only do this if the water has
cleared up completely from the previous drops of yeast.
I harvest a jar of daphnia every few days (2 to 4) by screwing a ring
(canning jar) on with cloth instead of a lid. Then I drain off 25% of the
water. I then divy the remaining water and daphnia up between my three fresh
water tanks and leave a small amount in the jar which I fill backup with
waste water from the fish tanks. This restarts the daphnia culture in that
jar from the few that are left in it. This feeds about 100 to 200 daphnia
per time to my fish. They love it. I also do a similar culture with brine
shrimp but restart the culture from cysts/eggs each time as I've not got
them to breed yet although I have grown adult brine shrimp.
Cheers,
-Walter