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feeding Daphnia



Non-member submission from ["Albert So" <albert_so at hotmail_com>]

I keep 3 10-gal of Daphnia for feeding tropical fish.
Recently talking to a friend of mine regarding raising
Daphnia, he mentioned using baby food as a regular
feeding.

I was not so sure at first.  Since I got 3 tanks of
Daphnia, I decided to use 1 to experiment.  I use a
teaspoon of sweetpotato baby food and dissolve in
warm RO water.  Then pour the mixture into the tank.
I repeat the process for 3 consecutive days and then
evaluate for overfeeding.

To my surprise, the Daphnia population was inceased
(qualitative).  In addition, the sweetpotato was 
building up on the bottom  (I got snail at the bottom
to help out).  However, there were also some moldy
patches starting to grow on the side of the aquarium.
I stop the sweetpotato feeding immediately to under
the moldy problem.  To my surprise, snails would
plowed through the mold.  As for the Daphnia, they
all got a nice red tint to them.  30% water change
was followed on subsequent day.  Then after another
feeding, I did a 50% water change.  During this
period, I was harvesting a good portion of the Daphnia
on a daily basis.

All in all, the sweetpotato baby food feeding actually
work real well.  I have since cut back the feeding
to about twice a week (to reduce water change to bi-weekly
schedule).

My other method of feeding Daphnia was used in
other 2 tanks.  It consists of green peas only.
Snails will eat the peas and the waste product will
help 'create' green water.  The Daphnia raise under
such condition has a green tint on them.
Less water change is required for this method, 
however, production is also lower (can only harvest
once a week).
In all 3 tanks I have a small amount of air bubbling
through for gas ex-change purpose.

I have since converted all 3 tanks to baby food regiment.
The cost of baby food method is definitely higher
than the green pea method. However, the ROI (return on 
investment) should be at greater since one could get
higher production rate from the culture.


Albert



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