Daphnia culture - am I doing this right?

[Niels D]

When one's planning to keep a culture outside in a tub or something, you can help turning the water green while ageing by putting a little bit of milk or yeast in it. During winter you won't have a good supply of dapnia, but don't pour away the water, because it will be a perfect environment for your new culture next spring.

A little bit off topic, but this method really works for me. While it's outside you are given a bunch of bloodworms and blackworms (depending on where you live of course) for free!

 

[Jesper]

Hey,
Just thought I would add that my Daphnia seem to feed off of algae, i.e. they are not filter feeding. I am not adding anything to the tank, but they seem happy and are breeding. They breed enough to sustain my 5 orientalis larvae and still increase in numbers.

I have noticed that they all hang out high in the water column by tank sides and hit their "arms" against the algae on the walls when the light is turned on(16h right now to sustain the algae).

When the light is turned off the the Daphnia tend to sink to the bottom and forage all over, this is when the larvae start stalking them. Quite fascinating stuff, its like a bbc bristol production ) I am just missing mr Attenborough..

 

[Molch]

Molch how are the new batch I sent you doing?.

is that you, Bill?
They were fine, then crashed, now they are blooming again. Sort-of an up-and down thing.
I keep them very low-maintenance and feed sparingly at the moment. I don't need large amounts until I have young larvae, maybe in a month or so. Until then, I just want to keep them alive.,..