Re:Green Water System

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: Re:Green Water System
From: "David W. Parkin" <dwparkin at mmm_com>
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 09:00:01 -0600
I saw the following message a few days ago and thought I would offer how I
make green water on a continual cycle:

>From: "Anne Nicholls"  <ANNE at southend_wayne.edu>
>Date: 9 Jan 96 15:49:22 EST
>Subject: Daphnia & green water
>
>Bill Hamlin-
>
>I saw that you were tralking about keeping daphnia. I'm having
>horrible luck at keeping the little guys and I was wondering if you
>(and anyone else out there) could help me out by telling me (in
>detail if you could) how you start and maintian a daphnia tank.


I use 1 ga. glass cyder jugs as containers - 7 to be exact.  These sit on a
South facing windowsill to get the maximum amount of light.  I have an air
pump with a manifold to split off 7 lines for curculation within the tanks -
this is critical so that algea doesn't grow and block the sun light on the
sides of the jug.  Now,  the water I use has a soluble garden fertilizer
added (Miraclel Grow) at 1 TBS per gallon.  This system is then seeded with
green water in tank #1 - two days later tank #2 -  two days later tank #3 -
you get the picture.  When this has turned bright green (about 7 to 14
days),  I pour it into a Daphnia or rotifer tank as food for the little
guys.  Refill the jug with water mixture and seed with tank #2 which should
be about to turn bright green.  This is repeated with each jug as they turn
bright green.  As you might be able to tell,  this will provide about 1
gallon of fresh green water every two days. 

 Now,  a few words of warning:
1)  Clean everything after use to prevent fungus infection.
2)  Empty each tank as it turns bright green even if you don't need it as
food.  This will keep the cycle going.  If you don't do this,  I (you) end
up with everything out of sync. and a big dark green mess to boot.

I have used this sytem off and on when I needed to grow little bugs for fry. 

Hope this helps.

DWP