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Re: Daphnia eggs (ephippia)
Hatching Daphnia winter eggs:
Place the Daphnia ephippia in a container of water in a refrigerator for about
two weeks. Fill a two to ten gallon aquarium with hard alkaline water the same
temperature as in the refrigerator. Aerate lightly and add the winter eggs.
Allow the water to reach room temperature naturally and slowly. Once the
Daphnia have hatched, aeration is optional. Tank should be lit with a timed
light at least twelve hours of twenty-four, or leave on 24 hours a day.
Another hatching method is to place the eggs and a little fine peat moss in a
ten gallon tank with less than a half inch of water. Allow the water to slowly
evaporate. After the tank has been dry for at least a week, completely fill
the tank and lightly aerate. Usually only a few eggs hatch at an attempt. This
is nature's insurance policy that the Daphnia are not wiped out by fickle
weather. Each time you repeat these processes, a few more eggs will hatch.
practically anything you do, or don't do, a few eggs are sure to hatch. Almost
impossible is it that anything, other than using rain water, distilled, R O,
or deionized water, would make things go wrong. I feed Daphnia to almost
everything, sometimes I run out of prepared foods and feed nothing but Daphnia
until the "next paycheck". Every time I have hatched or tried to hatch
killifish eggs stored in moist peat moss, I have always gotten Daphnia
hatching out too, in spite of the soft water, whether or not any killie eggs
hatched.