Question: Creating daphnia/bug culture larvae can live in?

[jelly]

I was thinking about how to breed a daphnia culture that I can just add some axolotl larvae to.
I read on this page Caudata Culture Articles - Microfoods Joel Smith grew a bug culture in a tank for his newt larvae.

**My main question would be how to keep the parameters correct for the larvae. I have tubs set up in my tunnel house (it is winter here), 30-60 Litres, and daphnia are growing and multiplying well in them, but when I have tested ammonia in my greenist one (others are newer and 'cleaner') it is really high, between 5 and 10mg/L. I was adding food to it for the ostracod's before I put daphnia in it. After I got that reading I siphoned out the bottom junk and added more clean water.
I have been expecting the daphnia to disappear.

Our water is from a creek behind our house, very short creek off a steep hill, is low ph., around 6-6.5, and low in salts too, - low kH.

I add salts to my adult axys tank when I do water changes and this has stopped the 'temporary anaemia' that one was getting.

 

[Jennewt]

I know several people (including me) have experimented with trying to culture daphnia in the same tank with the larvae. My conclusion is that it isn't workable. As you noticed, it's hard to keep the water quality good enough for both. I find it's better to optimize the daphnia tank for daphnia and the larva tank for larvae; it's too complicated to make one tank that works for both.

Regarding the addition of salts, what kind of salts do you add? There may be better products.

 

[jelly]

Aquarium salts aka tonic salts, that was all there was available.

I have been thinking this over and a lot of my problem could be that I have been using some "uncycled" green water, fresh water plus supply of ammonia. Which was creating some awesomely GREEN green water lol!So I have started using more cycled water, out of my pond/tank etc.

I am also coming to the conclusion that it easier to maintain optimum conditions for both when they are separate..

 

[Jennewt]

If you will be combating the problem of soft water long-term, I would recommend getting a different product, one that contains minerals, not just salt. You will probably have to mail order, as your local pet shop may not have the right stuff. These are the kind of products you should consider (sorry, I don't know what the options would be in NZ):
Holtfreter's solution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aquarium Water Conditioners for RO Water: Kent R/O Right Water Conditioner
Seachem Equilibrium Mineral Balance - 1800PetSupplies.com
Be sure you are getting a product intended for freshwater, not salt water.

 

[wandering]

There's no such thing as cycled water. There's dechlorinated water or there's a cycled tank. The cycled tank contains a mature bacteria colony usually within a sponge filter or ceramic media etc, as they live in 'biofilms'. The water from a cycled tank contains almost no bacteria.

Just in case any newbies are reading this and get confused!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[jelly]

Yes I should have been clearer.

"uncycled" water plus what I added (axy food and blood meal)= water high in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate.

"cycled" water, water that only has nitrate in it as the bacteria have worked their magic in the tank already.