Daphnia
Contents:
- culturing daphnia
by ghenderson-at-155.64.150.25 (Gary Henderson) (Thu, 11 Aug 1994)
- [killies] vacation feeding? we don't need no stinkin' vacation feeding
by oleg-at-netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) (Tue, 6 Sep 1994)
- Daphnia culture
by jvonich-at-aol.com (JVonich) (20 Mar 1995)
- Daphnia FAQ
by qx01820-at-inet.d48.lilly.com (14 Apr 95)
- Raising Daphnia/Brine shrimp question
by bhoffma1-at-ix.netcom.com (Robert Hoffman) (13 Jul 1995)
- Experiments
by franc-at-golden.golden.net ()
- Greetings and a question on Daphnia
by Jay Exner <jayexner-at-fast.net> (Tue, 04 Feb 1997)
- Daphnia and Spirulina
by krombhol-at-felix.teclink.net (Paul Krombholz) (Tue, 22 Apr 1997)
- Daphnia again
by spush/saudan.HAC.COM (Fri, 28 Feb 1997)
- how to catch daphnia
by Foo <foo/usa.net> (Sun, 30 Mar 1997)
- RE: Easy live foods (was RE: Spawning Luelingi)
by "Griffiths, Richard" <rgriffit/visa.com> (Thu, 14 May 1998)
- Easy Live Food
by Jota Melgar <jsmelgar/compuserve.com> (Fri, 15 May 1998)
- Culturing pond organisms.
by oleg/Veritas.COM (Oleg Kiselev) (22 Apr 92)
- Summarry of responses on Daphnia
by ()
- Summarry of responses on Daphnia
by ()
- Daphnia food
by DougGuynn/aol.com (Sun, 31 Jan 1999)
- was Chichlid identity now swim bladder
by "Helen Burns" <helen.burns/bigwig.net> (Wed, 26 Apr 2000)
- Daphnia cultures and more
by "Scott Davis" <unclescott/prodigy.net> (Sat, 13 May 2000)
- Daphnia cultures and more
by "Scott Davis" <unclescott/prodigy.net> (Sat, 13 May 2000)
- Culturing Daphnia (was APD V4 #124
by George Slusarczuk <yurko/warwick.net> (Mon, 28 Feb 2000)
- Daphnia and Green Water
by krombhol/teclink.net (Paul Krombholz) (Wed, 5 Apr 2000)
- Growing Daphnia & more on worms
by Biplane10/aol.com (Sat, 17 Jun 2000)
- daphnia growing tidbits
by Karotin Bugsy <sege7_2000/yahoo.com> (Fri, 27 Oct 2000)
- daphnia collecting
by Al G Eaton <sege7_2000/yahoo.com> (Wed, 28 Feb 2001)
- Removal of information
by FloridaAquaFarms/aol.com (Mon, 2 Apr 2001)
by ghenderson-at-155.64.150.25 (Gary Henderson)
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994
Newsgroup: sci.aquaria
Hi Ray,
This is practically all I did as a graduate student (I guess I must have done
something else to get my degreebut it didn't feel like it).You can raise
daphnia in the water where you find them but this probably would not be ideal
for aquarium use. They are actually quite hardy if you keep them well fed and
do partial water water changes on them. I would keep some of your stock in the
fridge to keep them reproducing slowly because once they get going they can
overwhelm the capacity of their container quickly. To get a really clean
culture you can order them or collect the ephipia. Ephipia are the resting
eggs that can withstand freezing and drying conditions. They are black,
sadle-bag shaped, and pretty hydrophobic. About 1-2mm long. What is nice is
that they will also withstand a three to five minute bath in 5% chlorox which
very few microorganisms will do. Just rinse them after this and put them in
water (some aquarium water would most likely be fine).
We used to feed them pure cultured, single-celled, green algae, scenedesmus or
clamydomonous (spelling is probably off) but have read that they will take
yeast and some bacteria. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any other
questions.
Maybe I should post this? What do you think?
Gary Henderson
Ray then asked about getting ephipia but as far as I know only adult cultures
are available. If you live anywhere where there is fish-free, standing water
there is a good chance you can find Daphnia or at least ephipia. Look on the
downwind shore of the pond. Some of the larger lakes in Oregon have huge rafts
of ephipia wash up on shore. If you are in a dry area (like Oregon in August)
then wait for a couple months for rain and there should be a small bloom of
Daphnia then.
Culturing algae might start with a pure culture purchased somewhere but for
bulk feeding we had 20 gal aquaria, vigorous aeration, and flourescent
lighting. Again, used aquarium water would probably have enough nutrients for
fairly good algal growth.
by oleg-at-netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev)
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1994
Newsgroup: alt.aquaria.killies,rec.aquaria
We went away for a week. because of the suddenness of the decision, I
did not have a chance to arrange for someone killifis-literate to come
by a couple of times and feed my fish. Here is what I did.
I nolonger have 60 tanks. I have been slowly consolidating the smaller
tanks and replacing them with larger ones, and I have been seriously
getting rid of species I was not actively working with. Even
lampeyes. Still, I have quite a number of tanks (a whole room-full)
and a number of tanks with fry, some quite young, some just hatched.
I am not too concerned about leaving an adult fish to starve for a
week. This is not too uncommon in the wild and the fish suffer much
worse treatment when they are shipped from the collection sites or from
the fish farms. Besides, these are well-fed killifish who can benefit
from some fasting. But the fry were something I *was* concerned
about.
My solution? Daphnia. Lots and lots of daphnia. I had heavily harvested
all 3 of my cultures for this feeding -- and it worked.
The day before we left, I had fed the fish heavily with adult and baby
brine shrimp (as appropriate). Then, the day we were leaving, I had dumped
heavy amounts of daphnia into all my tanks, especially the fry tanks. And
we left for a week.
Resulting losses? 1 adult F. filametosum male who had been blated for the
last 3 months and should have died a while ago. No losses of fry, other
adult killies, or dwarf cichllids, or tetras.
For that matter, this is not terribly different from the way I keep my
outdoor 32 gal trash can with Lucania goodei. I feed them 1-2 times a week
with large amounts of mosquito larvae and daphnia (swish the net through the
mosquito/daphnia culture, dump everything into the Lucania container). The
fish look phenomenally good (males show bright blue dorsal and anal fins,
and a bright red caudal) and there are a number of moderately large fry in the
container. They obviously like that kind of feeding arrangement.
So next time you are going away for a week or less, and you have nobody to
feed the fish for you, and your tanks are not overstocked and biologically
well-balanced, and you have lots of daphnia handy -- try this! No
guarranties, of course, and your milage may vary.
(Had I done this in UK, the damned bunny-hugging goons from RSPCA would
probably skin me alive for this. Luckily, in this country we can
counter-sue for frivolous lawsuits -- and win).
--
Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path
by jvonich-at-aol.com (JVonich)
Date: 20 Mar 1995
Newsgroup: alt.aquaria
My setup for raising daphnia has been to take a 4'x4'x2' plastic
container, and adding some bloodmeal. I then let this stand for a couple
of weeks befor adding daphnia, cypris, cyclops, and other small copepods.
I also have a couple af goldfish in there to keep supplying nutrients for
the algae. I add a small amount of bloodmeal every month, and harvest the
critters regularly. Last year, by the end of summer, I had fished out
pounds of mosquito larvae, daphnia, and many other creatures that
appeared. My fish are fat and colorful. the only problem is your friends
will keep asking you for live food. I guess it is like winning the lottery
or something.
Take it slow
Sean
From rec.aquaria Fri Apr 14 23:05:15 1995
by qx01820-at-inet.d48.lilly.com
Date: 14 Apr 95
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria
Hi there, it's your friendly neighborhood editor This article has been
removed at the request of the author of the Plankton Culture Manual, because its content is essentially plagarized
from his book. Thanks for not screaming.
by bhoffma1-at-ix.netcom.com (Robert Hoffman)
Date: 13 Jul 1995
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria
In <3tvfkl$esv$2-at-mhafc.production.compuserve.com> Howard Homler
<76212.32-at-CompuServe.COM> writes:
>
>Bill, get a hold of "Plankton Culture Manual" by Florida Aqua
>Farms, Inc. Phone 904-567-8540. It's more than enough info on
>culturing rotifers, daphnia, brine shrimp, phytoplankton, etc. I
>got a rotifer culture kit from them, but they do not stock
>daphnia starters. I'm still looking for that, myself. H2
>
>--
>H2
You can get a daphnia starter culture from L.F.S Cultures, P.O. Box
607, University, MS 38677. $4.50 for one culture, $9.00 for a large
culture. I never have tried their daphnia but have ordered wingless
fruitflies from them.
Bob
by franc-at-golden.golden.net
Paul wrote on Sun, 11 Aug 1996 17:20:38 -0500
Snip.........
> I have D. magna, a big blundering species, and D. pulex, a smaller species
> that produces overwintering eggs, ephippia?, sometimes. I use pulex to
> keep the water clear in most of my tanks and jars. pulex is sensitive to
> high temperatures and dies in the low 90's. magna seems to be more
> tolerant of high temperatures. I also have a very small species whose name
> I do not know. There is also another species of Daphnia that one can find
> in any pond that hangs on the side of the tank or on plants with its
> antennae, rather than hopping about in the open water. I have used it to
> keep tanks clear in the past, but don't have any of them now.
>
> What is D. miona like?
>
When I wrote the article about Daphnia a few years ago I borrowed
book that talks only about this species. Unfortunately I don't have
it anymore so I can't look-up the physical characteristics of D. Moina
but if you are interested I'll get the book. I still have my article on the
computer, so I'll quote some data from it.......
Daphnia have a wide tolerance to temperature. The optimum temp.
for D. Magna is 18 - 22 deg C (64 - 72 F) Moina withstand extremes
even more, resisting daily variations of 5 - 31 deg C (41 - 88 F)!!! their
optimum being 24 - 31 C.
All Daphnia are extremely sensitive to metal ions and many dissolved
toxins in the water. Again Moina shows the highest resistance levels...
Protein content of the dry tissue in Moina is exceeding 70%. Of course
they consist of 95% water, 4% protein, 0.54%fat, 0.6 7% carbohydrates
and 0.15% ash. The fatty acid composition of food is important to the
survival and growth of fish fry. Omega-3 highly saturated acids are
essential for many species of fish. Moina on bakers yeast are very
high in monoenoic fatty acids.................
Moina will survive for a few days in the refrigerator although the
protein levels drop substantially during that period.
Franc Gorenc franc-at-golden.net
Kitchener, Ontario http://www.golden.net/~franc
Canada
by Jay Exner <jayexner-at-fast.net>
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 1997
Steve,
As I recall, CALCIUM is the magic ingredient. You should perhaps
put a nylon filter bag full of crushed coral or similar in the
culture vessel. It increases and buffers the pH, but more importantly
it will supply the daphnia with calcium for their shells. Without
adequate levels, they will reproduce sexually instead of asexually,
and hence produce resting eggs (ephippia) instead of many live young.
Jay
<mucho snippage>
At 04:57 PM 2/4/97 PST, you wrote:
>Are there mineral nutrients I should be adding?
>Thanks,
>
>Steve Pushak spush-at-hcsd.hac.com Vancouver BC Canada
--
Jay Exner - Allentown PA USA - jayexner-at-fast.net
http://www.users.fast.net/~jayexner
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by krombhol-at-felix.teclink.net (Paul Krombholz)
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997
Miles Morrissey <mmorriss-at-sophia.smith.edu> wrote, Monday, Apr. 21
>I bought some Daphnia from DAELCO a couple of weeks ago to see if it would
>clear up some green water I was culturing in a newly setup tank at work.
>The directions for culturing Daphnia warned not to use tap water as many
>systems include heavy metals that kill the Daphnia. This tank had been
>set up for several weeks with some struggling echinodorus and Vallisneria
>as well as some stem plant cuttings that I had added to try to compete
>with the green water; Therefore I thought the water might be sufficiently
>aged to support the Daphnia. Anyway, I put them in on a Friday and they
>were all gone on Monday. Green water;didn't make a dent. I'm assuming,
>correctly I think, that Otto's (the only fish inhabiting this tank
>currently) do not eat Daphnia. My question is how do people successfully
>culture Daphia?? Would some survive to reproduce in a heavily planted
>tank. I used to use Convict Cichlid Fry as live food until I found that a
>couple always find aq way to survive the first couple of weeks and
>eventually turn the tables of the Pearl Gouramis. Anyone know when the
>live food news group will be back on line. Any one know where I can get a
>starter culture of Daphnia for less than the $11 you end up paying DAELCO
>to send you some???
>--------------------------------------------
I bet the Ottos ate the Daphnia. I have not had experience with Ottos and
Daphnia, but I have seen a single Corydoras catfish clean out every single
Daphnia in a 29 gallon tank in 24 hours. Most popular aquarium fish can
quickly get every last Daphnia.
You can get various species of Daphnia in any small pond, but care has to
be taken to separate them from other invertebrate nasties and unwanted hair
algae. This can be done with small dishes, a magnifying glass and an
eyedropper. Only a few individuals have to be separated, because they
multiply rapidly if given green water. The species that swim in open
water will come up near the surface in the evening after sunset and can be
netted. There is another very common species that does not swim in open
water, but hangs by its antennae on plants or debris in shallow water. It
can swim if disturbed, but generally is motionless. Filling a quart jar in
a shallow, weedy area usually pulls in 5 or 10 of these. I recommend
culturing Daphnia in a gallon jar or small aquarium by feeding them
portions of green water. Keep some ramshorn or pond snails in with them,
and transfer some of the Daphnia to any aquarium you want to clear up after
you have removed all the fish. After they have cleared up the green water,
I would not return the fish immediately, but would try to encourage the
plants to grow for a few months until they are well established and
numerous. With thicker plant growth, green water is not as likely to
return. Keep several cultures of Daphnia in jars or tanks without any
fish so that you will always have them available.
by spush/saudan.HAC.COM
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997
To: J.Fidrmuc/kub.nl
>
> > > >BTW, my 5 gal pail with 1 cup of chicken manure has an incredible
> > > >amount of daphnia in it now. The top is covered with a green frothy
> > > >scum so I haven't collected any yet but as soon as I clean that off
> > > >it should be no problem. I suggest putting the manure into a cloth
> > > >bag before dumping it in. That keeps things a lot cleaner.
>
> I vaguelly remember that you described before how you raise daphnia.
> Could you perhaps briefly repeat it again?
I had been using green water out of my aquarium but that supply has
ended since I finally got rid of the algae bloom. Green water works
moderately well but will be used up in a few days (depending on how
many daphnia you have). You need to have strong light (like sunlight)
and nutrients to sustain the algae growth but eventually the daphnia
win. The manure is a better approach since it grows bacteria so
well; faster than the daphnia can eat it up and I have a large
population of daphnia now. At first I thought I might have put too much
manure and turned the water anoxic but they survived and in the last
week or so (I was away) there was a pulse (population explosion)
of daphnia.
> In particular, is this pail indoors or outdoors? How much manure do
> you use? What do you feed the daphnia?
I used about a cup of manure in a 5 gal pail of green water and a 50 watt
halogen bulb shining directly into it. I also added a handful of dolomite
lime and a drop of chelated Fe and a little K & Mg. The daphnia eat the
bacteria that grow from the manure and whatever green algae can survive
their voracious appetites. I got a green foamy scum on the surface which
I haven't figured out how to deal with (I don't want to put it into
my fish tanks) since it seems to have cyanobacteria in it. Next time I
would put the manure into a cloth bag to prevent making a mess since when
you stir a net in there, everything goes into a cloud and you can get
bits of manure in with the daphnia (not good). This is all indoors
and the room temp is about 75F with the water running about 68F or so.
I also have a larger container outdoors but its too cold yet.
> I suspect I added too much yeast and the daphnia were not able to eat
> it quickly enough. Moreover, what really puzzles me, I got something
> what I think were cyclops in this container after I added yeast. I'm
> sure my culture was clean before though. Those _cyclops_ are smaller
> and faster than daphnia.
I think the cyclops came from my fish tanks along with the green water
but they could come from soil or manure too I suppose.
Steve
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by Foo <foo/usa.net>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997
Newsgroup: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria.freshwater.misc
To: DMS <dianas/inch.com>
DMS wrote:
> ..... A kid in a fish store told
> me to put a potato in a bucket of water and in a few days I'd have
> daphnia. Is this true?
No, its not. While on rare occasion daphnia can somehow get into
standing water that didn't have daphnia before in my experience
this is very rare.
The best way to get daphnia started is to find a source of daphnia and
then grow them. While you might find them in a fishless pond (in a
pond with fish the fish will find them before you), the best choices
are from members of local clubs or local hobbiests who also keep
them. Years ago I found them in a few fish stores. As a last
alternative there are individuals who will sell and send to you
live "cultures".
Daphnia grow in fresh water. If you plan to grow then set up some
containers now so that they age somewhat before you introduce the
critters. I've used everything from the foam boxes fish are shipped in
to buckets to 30 gallon trash cans and even one small "kiddie pool".
I also had a small but very productive culture indoors once in 20
gallon tank with high airation (no gravel, no plats, and certainly no
fish). The daphnia need food, I know of two good sources:
They eat algae (the kind that floats suspended in green water),
a nice container of green water will grow lots and soon no longer be
green. You can also take advantage of this to clear a tank that has
gone green; remove the fish, turn off any external filter, and
inroduce some daphnia. In a few days the tank will be clear
(lenght of time dependent on amount of daphnia) and the fish will
have a treat waiting when they are re-introduced.
Since you likely will quickly run out of green water, you can also feed
the yeast. I've used both cake yeast and dry bakers yeast. Cake yeast
worked good when I had only a small culture, a small chunk could
be taken off the cake and disolved in some water, then fed to the
culture. When I got into outdoor cultivation cake yeast was harder to
find and seemed way too expensive; I get a bulk pack of yeast and keep
it in a closed container in the refrig. Every other day or so I put a
very small amount of sugar in some warm water and add some yeast;
when the water has cooled to near room temperature it's time to feed
the culture.
I should caution you that while I've done this for a number of years
it's far from an exact science. Care must be tken to avoid the
sudden death of the entir culture. The best thing I know to do is
to keep several containers going, even small backup containers.
Avoiding using too much sugar when waking up the dry yeast, as this
will quickly foul the water. And once you have the culture going real
good, I believe it is extremely important to both feed and harvest it.
Don't feed it and then neglect to harvest it within 18-30 hours, you
could produce so much daphnia that the entire culture would dir of
overcrowding.
Also, an important warning when trying to start your culture.
Daphnia can be hard to get started in a new container but once they
catch they will grow well. If you get daphnia don't just dump
your entire source into a bucket of water and hope for the best.
This can be a good way to end up with a bucket of dead daphnia.
Introduce a few daphnia to as many containers of what seems to be
suitable water from as many different sources as you can. Once
you get them started you'll have little or no problems, but several
people I've given large cultures to have lost them all by not heeding
this and putting everything in one bucket.
There certainly are other approaches, I hope others with experience
will post them. I've tried feeding small amounts of milk, but this
seems to foul the brew too fast. I read of suggestions including straw,
never tried this myself. The potato might even make a good source
of food, I may try that some time.
By the way, although I've kept several strains of daphnia going for
several years, I'm currently without any and interested in getting
started in Killie fish again. Does anyone near Raleigh N.C. have any
daphnia that they could help me out with?
by "Griffiths, Richard" <rgriffit/visa.com>
Date: Thu, 14 May 1998
To: "'apisto/majordomo.pobox.com'" <apisto/majordomo.pobox.com>
One of the nice things about Daphnia, once you have a culture going,
you can feed the daphnia paprika (and other things) and thereby enhance
the color of fish. And if you use greenwater for the daphnia, you also
can get 'green' into the fish as well.
Additionally, when you have new, or difficult fish, having a
continuous, in their tank, food source available helps fhis eat, and
perhaps prosper than if you are only putting bbs or mosquito larvae in
once or twice a day--and larval transitions are not fun if you feed and
>they don't all get eaten.
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by Jota Melgar <jsmelgar/compuserve.com>
Date: Fri, 15 May 1998
To: "INTERNET:apisto/majordomo.pobox.com" <apisto/majordomo.pobox.com>
Nick,
>where do you find this Apisto-gram? Or what is the recipe for the
>"Delicious Daphnia Dreams"?
The Apisto-gram is the publication of the Apistogramma Study Group. For
$15.00 (U.S. membership) or $20.00 (oversees) you get a 1 year
subscription. As for the recipe, 8 ounces of frozen peas, 2 tablets of
Theragran or any other multivitamin, 3 ounces of carrots or beats, and some
paprika. Blend everything and then pour it in a fine net and squeeze as
much juice as you can. Combine with enough water to make 1 gallon. I double
the recipe to make 2 gallons of food.
Julio
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by oleg/Veritas.COM (Oleg Kiselev)
Date: 22 Apr 92
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria
I checked with Florida Aqua Farms "Plankton Culture Manual" and found that
I mis-stated some facts.
oleg-at-veritas.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes:
>Water:
>Typical aquarium water for all of them. Daphnia do not tolerate phosphates
>and will rapidly die if phosphates go above 2 ppm. Best keep it under .5 ppm.
>Daphnia are tolerant of nitrogen: they do just fine in 20 ppm of NH3 and
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
CORRECTION: they will TOLERATE high concentration of unionized NH3 (the
deadly stuff) but 20 ppm is LC100 (i.e. lethat concentration with 100%
mortality). Also, Daphnia magna will tolerate high phosphate levels.
Also, daphnia are very sensitive to copper.
--
"... i heard the droning / in the shrine
of the sea-monkey / palace of the brine ..." -- Pixies.
Oleg Kiselev oleg-at-veritas.com
VERITAS Software ...!{apple|uunet}!veritas!oleg
From: oleg-at-Veritas.COM (Oleg Kiselev)
Date: 14 Jan 93 05:49:28 GMT
by
Newsgroup: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria
gelinas-at-CAM.ORG (Daniel Gelinas) writes:
>(Who was the
>guy who wrote about culturing Daphnia in any kind of container? Get him on!)
>Any info would be appreciated. Especially from the guy who wrote the FAQ.
I wrote that portion of the FAQ.
What can I say? I always manage to keep some daphnia alive and
breeding in a small culture indoor, but have never managed to sustain
an indoor daphnia culture that was long-term (i.e. 3+ months) and
high-yield (i.e. enough to feed all my fish a couple of times a week).
I have little problem getting the daphnia going outdoors in 5 gal
buckets or 32 gal trashcans. But indoors the larger cultures inevitably
get destroyed by the infestations of hydra or cyclops, or because I have
overfed the culture, or because the culture had starved. I had ONCE in the
last 5 years managed to keep a 30 gal tank of daphnia going for 3 or so months
with a yield sufficient to feed the fish I had at that time every other day
(I had less than a dozen tanks at that time). That culture collapsed when
I somehow had contaminated it with Hydra.
I had tried using OSI's APR, live bakers yeast and deactivated brewers yeast
as substitutes for the green water, but I inevitably wind up overfeeding the
culture and turning it into a jar of stinky mess.
I know that Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco successfully cultures
daphnia to feed some of their fish. They use a few 50 gal drums lit with
bright fluorescent lights. They may or may not use yeast to supplement the
daphnia's diet.
So, try it. What do you have to lose?
Make sure you do not contaminate the culture with Cyclops or Hydra!
Use a specially designated net and hoses to work with your daphnia
cultures because it takes a single female Cyclops or a single Hydra
polyp to start the infestation that will destroy the culture in a
matter of weeks.
--
Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian.
Oleg Kiselev oleg-at-veritas.com
VERITAS Software ...!{apple|uunet}!veritas!oleg
From: oleg-at-netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev)
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1993 07:13:57 GMT
by
Newsgroup: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria
In article <1993Jan14.144620.13629-at-bsu-ucs> 01mbmccabe-at-leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu writes:
>How would one be sure to have no Hydra or Cyclops present in the water in the
>first place?
Get a clean culture to start with -- bio supply houses and mail order
vendors will normally sell pure cultures. Using a series of sieves to
screen out the adult Daphnia to become the culture "seed" is another
method of getting a pure culture.
>And where would Hydra and/or Cyclops come from?
They occur naturally in the same environment as Daphnia. Hydra live on
plants and other solid surfaces, Cyclops mostly tend to swim near the
same. In your tank the Cyclops and hydra can come with new plants and live
foods like black and tubifex worms.
>What are >Cyclops?
A small predatory crustacean. Makes a good live food for small canivorous
fish, but will damage the fish eggs, eat small fry and will eat the small
daphnia faster than they are born.
--
Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path
by DougGuynn/aol.com
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999
To: erik/thekrib.com
I recently got some info about a easy source of algae for daphnia. Thought
you might post this on The Krib (or not).
Brine Shrimp Direct sells an algae "cryopaste" which is a certrifuged algae
culture packged in propylene glycol, so freezing does not harm the culture. It
is a little expensive, but a little of this should last a LONG time.
The url is www.brineshrimpdirect.com (imagine that).
by "Helen Burns" <helen.burns/bigwig.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000
To: <apisto/majordomo.pobox.com>
Feeding live daphnia and raising the temperature can help to relieve the
fish of "excess wind". I was told this by someone who kept fancy Goldfish
which sometimes can be prone to swim bladder problems.
Helen
From: <Apistodave@aol.com>
> Here's a question for everyone. Fish can develop swim bladder problems
from
> being chilled. I just lost about 30 agassizi Tefes because of this . The
> other 300 or so look like they're recovering, can they do that? Strangely
> enough, I have read in a couple places that live daphnia can help this
> problem--whassup?
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by "Scott Davis" <unclescott/prodigy.net>
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000
Wow Mach, you must indeed now live at a high altitude in Hawaii to need to
paint your daphnia tanks black! We raise what is probably D. pulex here and
(in northern Illinois) worry about too much heat and not enough oxygen. On
the other hand Adrian, if you live on the Mexican Central Plateau that may
be an issue for you too.
I would really echo George's suggestion that you look in local temporary
ponds for a starter culture. It would be better, by the way, to look for
them in a pond or puddle with no fishes in them. While it may be not a major
issue, pulling them from waters without fish or too many other creatures
makes them less likely to carry parasites which might harm your fishes.
If you have space, set up two or more cultures. Most food cultures will
crash from time to time. It happens to us all. I think I took and
distributed ten starters in the last week or so at local clubs and exhorted
everyone to start two cultures. Otherwise they have to drive to my place for
another starter.
Yeast is a good food, but must be dissolved in warm water which is mixed
before adding it to the tank. Only very lightly tint the water. I find it
easy to be clumsy and overfeed yeast. The daphnia suffocate. Needham et al
(Laboratory Culture of Invertebrate Animals) suggest that the two best foods
for indoor cultures are either yeast or greenwater. Greenwater is much
safer, in that it will live and reproduce forever (or until consumed) in a
lighted tank.
Indoor cultures should have an airline. A modest flow from a hard airline
tube is better than using a fine airstone - the fine bubbles may float the
daphnia.
I would defer to George in 99.9% of what he would say on most any aquaristic
issue, but do believe that bigger containers are better. They are more
stable in terms of water temperature, oxygen and water quality. A little
depth of 50 or more cm (so long as children are not endangered) is
desirable too.
An empty outdoor culture here may be started with a half bag of the
composted cattle manure available at garden centers. That is already pretty
benign as manures go and must have sat for quite a time.
My outdoor cultures are under trees. Leaves are always falling in and help
fuel it. Too many leaves and they need to be taken out. Hardware cloth - or
an old stick - does the trick. Pondsnails from a fishtank help the
decomposition process along.
Added greenwater accelerates growth. Adding it with water changes is useful
and encourages the often neglected water changes. If rainstorms are
forcasted, drain some of the water out of the containers outside.
Once in a while we pull some grasses and dandelions from the edges of the
yard and garden and place them in a bucket to ferment for a while. A small
jar of that broth added is useful. Don't feed too much or the water can
foul.
The dandelion soup is a great draw for mosquitoes if left long in the sun,
so plan accordingly. The mossie eggs look like little pieces of charcoal
scraped by a fingernail and bob around on the surface of the bucket. They
are easily skimmed off and dropped in fry tanks as a first food for anything
that feeds on the surface. In some places there are not only ethical, but
legal issues which arise if we are sloppy in harvesting them.
In the case of a grass broth which grows mosquitoes, buckets are in this
case the best choice because they can be drained through a fine mesh net
into another bucket. Be careful to feed them so that all of the fish consume
all of the biggers ones rapidly. (My bride still thinks that that one nasty
night in the house, someone must have left a door open.)
Sometimes a daphnia culture will pick up more. I am assuming they blew in
as cysts from a nearby wet land, but we now have cyclops and seed shrimp out
there too.
Sometimes bloodworms and glassworms show up as well. Their parents are gnats
who fly in and lay eggs. They are great livefoods. The bloodworms, whose
eggs look like masses of mucus on the barrel sides, are vegetarians and do
well on rotting leaves. The glassworms are enthusiastic predators with a
fondness for mosquito larvae, so be careful not to put them with small fry.
In early spring a blanket weed algae blooms. Shortly thereafter the seed
shrimp hatch, bloom and consumer the blanketweed.
The eggs of all of those little crustaceans can over-winter or over-summer
dry. So if the container leaks (or in the case of one of ours, freezes and
bursts), shovel the dried material in the bottom of what remains to a new
container and add water. Most of the time, there will be a new daphnia
bloom. Daphnia eggs (you will see them from time to time on the backs of
females) are little black specks (quite flat actually) which are impossible
to sort out of dirt.
If you harvest about half of that bloom at a time, you may keep it going
quite a while. Harvesting is something of an art form. If you over harvest
and production drops or you under harvest and everything dies off - you are
not alone! Crashed cultures will usually come back.
Keeping the cultures under trees keep them from getting too warm. It also
cuts down on reflecting the sun. Those reflections can attract flying bugs
(water beetles, backswimmers, water skaters, damselflies, dragnonflies...)
which either settle in or lay their eggs. You will know when they have
arrived by the abrupt decline of the culture. Unless you have large cichlids
protecting eggs masses, the best thing to do with the culture is to save a
daphnia starter, dig a big hole next to it, dump the container into the hole
and fill it the hole up as soon as the water has mostly drained into the
ground.
If anyone is interested, I have a couple of slides of the daphnia tubs.
There is a scanner at work which supposedly scans slides. It would be an
excuse (after work hours of course) to try the scanner out and post a jpeg.
All the best!
Scott
by "Scott Davis" <unclescott/prodigy.net>
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000
Wow Mach, you must indeed now live at a high altitude in Hawaii to need to
paint your daphnia tanks black! We raise what is probably D. pulex here and
(in northern Illinois) worry about too much heat and not enough oxygen. On
the other hand Adrian, if you live on the Mexican Central Plateau that may
be an issue for you too.
I would really echo George's suggestion that you look in local temporary
ponds for a starter culture. It would be better, by the way, to look for
them in a pond or puddle with no fishes in them. While it may be not a major
issue, pulling them from waters without fish or too many other creatures
makes them less likely to carry parasites which might harm your fishes.
If you have space, set up two or more cultures. Most food cultures will
crash from time to time. It happens to us all. I think I took and
distributed ten starters in the last week or so at local clubs and exhorted
everyone to start two cultures. Otherwise they have to drive to my place for
another starter.
Yeast is a good food, but must be dissolved in warm water which is mixed
before adding it to the tank. Only very lightly tint the water. I find it
easy to be clumsy and overfeed yeast. The daphnia suffocate. Needham et al
(Laboratory Culture of Invertebrate Animals) suggest that the two best foods
for indoor cultures are either yeast or greenwater. Greenwater is much
safer, in that it will live and reproduce forever (or until consumed) in a
lighted tank.
Indoor cultures should have an airline. A modest flow from a hard airline
tube is better than using a fine airstone - the fine bubbles may float the
daphnia.
I would defer to George in 99.9% of what he would say on most any aquaristic
issue, but do believe that bigger containers are better. They are more
stable in terms of water temperature, oxygen and water quality. A little
depth of 50 or more cm (so long as children are not endangered) is
desirable too.
An empty outdoor culture here may be started with a half bag of the
composted cattle manure available at garden centers. That is already pretty
benign as manures go and must have sat for quite a time.
My outdoor cultures are under trees. Leaves are always falling in and help
fuel it. Too many leaves and they need to be taken out. Hardware cloth - or
an old stick - does the trick. Pondsnails from a fishtank help the
decomposition process along.
Added greenwater accelerates growth. Adding it with water changes is useful
and encourages the often neglected water changes. If rainstorms are
forcasted, drain some of the water out of the containers outside.
Once in a while we pull some grasses and dandelions from the edges of the
yard and garden and place them in a bucket to ferment for a while. A small
jar of that broth added is useful. Don't feed too much or the water can
foul.
The dandelion soup is a great draw for mosquitoes if left long in the sun,
so plan accordingly. The mossie eggs look like little pieces of charcoal
scraped by a fingernail and bob around on the surface of the bucket. They
are easily skimmed off and dropped in fry tanks as a first food for anything
that feeds on the surface. In some places there are not only ethical, but
legal issues which arise if we are sloppy in harvesting them.
In the case of a grass broth which grows mosquitoes, buckets are in this
case the best choice because they can be drained through a fine mesh net
into another bucket. Be careful to feed them so that all of the fish consume
all of the biggers ones rapidly. (My bride still thinks that that one nasty
night in the house, someone must have left a door open.)
Sometimes a daphnia culture will pick up more. I am assuming they blew in
as cysts from a nearby wet land, but we now have cyclops and seed shrimp out
there too.
Sometimes bloodworms and glassworms show up as well. Their parents are gnats
who fly in and lay eggs. They are great livefoods. The bloodworms, whose
eggs look like masses of mucus on the barrel sides, are vegetarians and do
well on rotting leaves. The glassworms are enthusiastic predators with a
fondness for mosquito larvae, so be careful not to put them with small fry.
In early spring a blanket weed algae blooms. Shortly thereafter the seed
shrimp hatch, bloom and consumer the blanketweed.
The eggs of all of those little crustaceans can over-winter or over-summer
dry. So if the container leaks (or in the case of one of ours, freezes and
bursts), shovel the dried material in the bottom of what remains to a new
container and add water. Most of the time, there will be a new daphnia
bloom. Daphnia eggs (you will see them from time to time on the backs of
females) are little black specks (quite flat actually) which are impossible
to sort out of dirt.
If you harvest about half of that bloom at a time, you may keep it going
quite a while. Harvesting is something of an art form. If you over harvest
and production drops or you under harvest and everything dies off - you are
not alone! Crashed cultures will usually come back.
Keeping the cultures under trees keep them from getting too warm. It also
cuts down on reflecting the sun. Those reflections can attract flying bugs
(water beetles, backswimmers, water skaters, damselflies, dragnonflies...)
which either settle in or lay their eggs. You will know when they have
arrived by the abrupt decline of the culture. Unless you have large cichlids
protecting eggs masses, the best thing to do with the culture is to save a
daphnia starter, dig a big hole next to it, dump the container into the hole
and fill it the hole up as soon as the water has mostly drained into the
ground.
If anyone is interested, I have a couple of slides of the daphnia tubs.
There is a scanner at work which supposedly scans slides. It would be an
excuse (after work hours of course) to try the scanner out and post a jpeg.
All the best!
Scott
by George Slusarczuk <yurko/warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000
Hello Neil,
There are several live-food sellers advertising Daphnia in the aquarium
magazines.
Unfortunately, not all "Daphnia" are alike, nor do all of them give
equally good results under YOUR conditions.
The advantage of collecting your own is that it is for free, it can be
fun and the critters are probably adapted to your water -- if your tap
water is similar to the pond water. If you select for culture individual
cladocerans, subculture them several times, then the chance of dragging
in parasites is nil.
There are more recipes for raising Daphnia than anyone can try out. The
best way is follow the directions of the person you get the starter
culture from. If you get them from the wild, then have fun and patience
experimenting.
I have done this several times, both ways, and find it both fun and
practical, if you want to "fatten up" a female for spawning. I could
never produce enough Daphnia to feed all my fish every day. Once a week
feeding of all tanks is about average.
Best,
George
> Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 07:29:37 -0500
> From: neil.anderson@asbury.edu
> Subject: Daphnia
>
> For years I have been told the benefits of live daphnia as a food for
> freshwater fishes (beginning with my reading of Innes' Exotic Tropical Fish
> nearly 40 years ago as a kid). I was recently reminded of this during an
> outbreak of green water. Although I didn't try it (I cleared the tank with
> a diatom filter), some suggested that I introduce live daphnia as a algae
> control measure. I've seen freeze-dried daphnia in the LFS but never live.
> Can anyone enlighten myself and others on how one goes about securing and/or
> raising live daphnia? I would think that daphnia strained from local
> streams and ponds would be risky in terms of introducing unwanted parasites.
>
> Thanks!
>
> ***********************
> Dr. Neil D. Anderson
> Asbury College
> Dept. of Bible and Theology
> Wilmore, Kentucky USA
> Office: (606) 858-3511 ext. 2455
> E-mail: neil.anderson@asbury.edu
> ***********************
by krombhol/teclink.net (Paul Krombholz)
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000
>From: "James Purchase" <jpurch@interlog.com>
>Subject: RE: Daphnia and Green Water
>
>The recent posts about Daphnia's abilities to cure a tank with suspended
>green algae intrigued me. Over the weekend, I obtained a bag of Daphnia from
>a fellow member of my local plant group (thanks again Franc) and placed them
>in one of my plant grow out tanks, whcich doesn't have any fish but does
>have lots of suspended algae (due no doubt to me habit of keeping too many
>nutrients in the water column of this tank).
>
>Within 12 hours, the previously pea soup green water had cleared remarkably.
>(and the Daphnia were VERY green). I'm not interested in getting rid of all
>of the suspended algae in this tank, because then the Daphnia would starve,
>but I'd bet that they could do it if given the chance. In a tank with fish I
>guess the problem would be to maintain enough Daphnia to handle the
>suspended algae while avoiding the hungry mouths of the fish.
>
>
The Daphnia don't usually die out from starvation when they clear up the
green water. They stop multiplying rapidly, and the population settles
down to a steady level. In a tank with fish, the fish get them all---no
survivors! I have tried "Daphnia cages", where the Daphnia are protected
from the fish by fine mesh netting. These work, but you have to be very
careful in your choice of netting. Common fabrics, such as nylon, dacron,
etc. give off toxic materials that can kill your plants. I finally got a
netting made of some kind of teflon-like material that was inert and has no
effect on the plants. Another thing about Daphnia is that they are
sensitive to high temperatures, and will all die out if the temp gets close
to 90 degrees F. They don't do very well at 85 degrees, and really prefer
to be in the 70's.
Paul Krombholz, in soggy central Mississippi, expecting some light frost
tonight.
by Biplane10/aol.com
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000
An update on the daphnia tank.
It was reported that daphnia like both a current and clean water. It was
suggested that I keep a separate container of green water, to feed the
daphnia periodically. I decided to go ahead and keep a bucket of green water
and keep the daphnia tank separate and clean. I had a 5 gallon tank with a
bubble wand going to keep the water moving.
I pulled all the algae-covered plant matter out of the daphnia tank (which
seemed to be helping to clear the water as well), all the *sludge* (from
sponge squeezings, etc.), and put all this into a tank of tank change water.
My thinking was that some daphnia may have been hiding in the mess and I
would let it sit for a while until they emerged and grew, and catch them
before I threw the mess out. I also put in two very large snails, which had
been gotten from a walmart, and passed on to me by a neighbor, somewhere
between the size of a golf and tennis ball) to help clean up all the plant
stuff. I had no water movement in this tank. Just a big mess.
It turned out this tank was the successful daphnia tank. The first one has
grown a very small daphnia population. Tank #2 with the thrown out plants
apparently contained enough to start a culture, and it was blooming. So I
decided to add population from tank 1 to tank 2. Or should I say water and
population from tank 2 to tank 1. I figured the water was more to their
liking. Also Tank 2 has a crack and had to go.
I skimmed out everything from tank 1 and dumped the water. I then dumped
everything from tank 2 into tank 1, including the muck that had been on the
bottom. As I was down to the last bit of water in the bottom of the tank,
what appeared, but WORMS. (This must be karmic.) Similar looking to those
hideous cammallanus that killed my rams, but whitish in color. (One had a
brown coloring). Maybe the largest was 1/4 inch long.
Knowing that part of the life cycle of worms takes place in either snails or
copepods, I think perhaps I am breeding parasite-ridden daphnia for my fish.
I'm wondering if I should throw the whole mess out and go with flake.
OTOH, I'm thinking how common these things are. I can't seem to get away from
them. Maybe I should just accept them as a part of life? Serve 'em up w/ some
butter and garlic and enjoy it?
And, I would be very happy if somebody could point me to an informational
site about various aquatic nematodes and parasitic worms. I couldn't find
anything out there but terrestrial, mainly horticultural nematodes. I'd like
to try to i.d. them.
(Hmmm, maybe now I should de-worm my snails and daphnia.)
Sylvia
by Karotin Bugsy <sege7_2000/yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000
You may have Daphnia pulex. A ten gallon aquarium
can maintain a small culture of daphnia indoors
successfully. I did this last year by placing a start
of blackworms in the bottom of the tank and adding
daphnia to it and an airstone running on extremely low
volume ...just enough to keep the surface film free
and allow for a better flow of gasses. I fed the
blackworms a banana peel, who inturn helped to feed
the daphnia. I also fed the daphnia cryogenically
frozen nanochloropsis algae. This is an algae that is
suitable for both freshwater and saltwater and keeps
in the freezer for about one year. You can also
obtain starter cultures of selenestrum algae cultures
out on the web. If anyone is interested you can email
me and i can point you to some urls.
To keep an algae culture going you need to harvest it
regularly or it will crash. As daphnia also take
calcium and magnesium out of the water column, it is
important to keep up with water changes. Some people
like to add some oyster shell to the culture, but
around here (cincinnati) its acceptable to just keep
changing water.
One could of course feed them yeast...but you have to
be very careful to not overfeed as you can kill an
entire culture in a matter of hours by overfeeding and
depleting the oxygen in the water. Too much aeration
is also inadvisable as daphnia which get caught at the
surface often die.
It is also advisable to keep a backup culture going
just in case your main culture crashes.
by Al G Eaton <sege7_2000/yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001
You can use the fine mesh aquarium nets to collect any
number of moina, daphnia or ceriodaphnia. The green
ones are probably too coarse, but I have used the ones
with fine white mesh in the ponds around here. I
drilled a hole in the end of a wooden handle (the same
size as the net handle) cut the loop off the end of
the net and twisted the net into the slot in the
wooden handle....works great. I have Daphnia magna
and aff. pulex going and soon will have Moina. My
Ceriodaphnia seems to have crashed in both containers.
I recommend the magna, they are big enough to see
easily and turn a nice red color.
__________________________________________________
by FloridaAquaFarms/aol.com
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001
To: erik/thekrib.com
Dear Erik Olson
You have an article posted by qx01820-at-inet.d48.lilly.com
Dated: 14 Apr 95
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria
Text is on Daphnia Culture- called "Daphnia FAQ"
I demand that this article be removed since it is vertually a copy of our
"Plankton Culture Manual" which has been copywrited since 1987. We are now
on the 6th edition.
This person did not do a dam thing in research and gave no one credit for the
information. I spent 3 years research on this area of the manual and
credited everyone where the info came from. I intend to sue if it is not
immediately removed. In the future you might want to carefully screen
articles like this. I certainly did not give them permission to do this.
Some sections are word for word.
Thank You
Frank Hoff
Florida Aqua Farms
email: floridaaquafarms@aol.com
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