Culturing Daphnia

[mark]

I've just unexpectedly got some eggs that were laid yesterday and i want to start a daphni culture so i can feed the larvae on them, but i have a few questions.
1)Are they easy to breed/culture?
2)Should i keep the culture out/indoors?
3)What should i feed the culture?
Thats all the questions i can think of for now, any other tips or suggestions very welcome.
Thanks in advance, Mark

 

[david]

Most of your questions are cover by John's article on daphnia http://www.caudata.org/daphnia/
So far I've needed them only during breeding season, so I've bought instead of cultured. Considering the costs, I'm going to have to spend some serious time reading about culturing them all year long myself

 

[mike]

I culture Daphnia outdoors but have never found indoor culture to be worthwhile:
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/food.html#6
At this time of year, for your larvae I would recommend starting on microworms:
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/food.html#4
brine shrimp:
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/food.html#3
then moving on to grindalworms:
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/food.html#5

 

[caleb]

Another possibility is Moina- Morg gave me a culture of these, and they're doing quite well in small jars indoors.

They're smaller than Daphnia- I'm hoping they'll be good for smallish larvae.

 

[mark]

Thanks David, Mike and Caleb

 

[keegan]

the nice thing about daphs compared to the worms is that they will live a long time and stay in your water column. I have cultered a few inside and it is really easy, but I was only feeding a small # once a week. I use a 1gallon plastic box (from candies), and drop in just a couple of cichlid or trout pellets as they disappear. You can hook up a slow bubbler which may be best, but I just gently stir the surface occasionally.

To harvest, I siphon them into a big cup and dump that whole thing into the tank, then replace the water in the daph culture with fresh stuff.

I'm lazy and not an expert, but there's my 2c anyway.

Keegan

 

[cataldo]

although I havent followed the above links: Does anyone know how to keep the hatched brine to grow to adult and live? I hatch them FINE. I keep adults ALIVE fine, BUT to put the newly hatched into a tank and raise them to adults is my problem, they all die out. I bought some of that "daph food" from the LFS but I dont believe that works or even yet , they dont eat it, Ive also tried yeast and failed.

Cataldo

p.s. I use regular salt mix to hatch and instant ocean for the tank after.

 

[jennifer]

Cataldo, many people have had the same problem. It's possible, but not easy. I read a website once for a place that was selling the food and instructions for raising brine shrimp all the way from hatching to adult, but I don't have the link.

 

[pin-pin]

Hi Cataldo,

I've raised brine shrimp from eggs to adult, and my experience has been that unless you separate the newly hatched shrimp from their eggs, they die off. I've raised them in a 2 gallon tank hooked up with nothing but a bubbler. I used liquidfry mixed with a little bit of spirulina powder to feed them.

However, it was an one-time curiousity experiment, I don't grow them on a regular basis because it's time consuming and their food costs more than they do.

Pin-pin

 

[cataldo]

humm... I never thought of fry food. It is liquid right? I never raised fish babies. LOL

You basically mean separating the newly hatched into a new tank away from the cysts and nasty stuff in the "hatching tank" right? This is what i have done. I will have to try the fry food though.

Any thoughts on temperature? I hatch them at 80F or so. What is the typical maintaining temp for them to grow? 75F?

Cataldo