Daphnia

[Habsfan]

Does anybody have any experience raising Daphnia in the Ottawa area?

Thanks

[wrm130]

yep:) I have a few cultures going.

[Fishnut]

Daphnia likes to eat single cell algae...aka green water and the bacteria that grows on debris at the bottom of the ponds where they're found.

[wrm130]

Sorry my first post wasnt that helpful.  I've tried a few methods for raising Daphnia, as has Jason from Critter Jungle.  I sold the store a starter culture and they are available there.

Things you'll need:
-bright light
-2 jars
Pretty simple.

Get yourself some greenwater going by running a bright light directly over a jar of treated water with some flake food mixed in for a high number of hours per day.  I also use rotting lettuce as I put snails in my daphnia jars.

Get yourself a starter culture.  Add it to a jar of treated water.  I personally do not change my daphnia water.  To harvest them (this might not be the most sanitary technique!!!) I siphon them out into a shot glass and just replace the water with greenwater.

As long as they are well fed, harvesting daily or every second day should not be a problem.

NOT harvesting is a problem.  They normally will reproduce asexually but if their numbers get too high and you start to see them piggybacking...They are sharing genes and preparing for their "puddle/pond" to dry up.  Their reproduction rate will decline greatly for a while.  Harvesting, to get them going again, at this point can be tricky.

Hope this helps.

Jason has also experimented with...some sortof hay? I can't remember the name.  As well as small pieces of banana peel.  Both these techniques have worked to a degree but for faster growth we've found the green water has been the way to go.

[sas]

Jason has also experimented with...some sortof hay? I can't remember the name.  As well as small pieces of banana peel.  Both these techniques have worked to a degree but for faster growth we've found the green water has been the way to go.

The hay that you mentioned, would it be Timothy?

Great post and thanks for sharing.

[Shawn84]

Have you try Paramecium? They are much easier then Daphnia. No need a source of light. Fry love them. You can feed them to the smallest fry and they dont foul your water. Harvesting is just pour culture water into your tank.

[wrm130]

The hay that you mentioned, would it be Timothy?

Great post and thanks for sharing.

YES! That's it!  Worked for him!somewhat)  Not for me! Not. At All:(

What exactly are paramecium?  Google showed me pics of microscopic blob things.  Would this be similar to infusoria?

hehe I am not concerned about fouling my water.  At all.

[Shawn84]

Paramecium are single cell creature. They are not microscopic. You can see them swimming in your culture. They are rather small. I feed them to all fry as it is the easiest live food culture I have kept. No smell and simple

[wrm130]

Hmmmm I may have had those then.  Swimming around when I originally sourced the culture.

[Habsfan]

Thanks for all the info.
I was hoping to do something in a spare 5g with LED lights I have. Do you think this could work  for green water?

I had also read about feeding yeast and flour.

Could a Paramecium culture be found in the same place?

[Shawn84]

You can culture Paramecium in a jar or a 2.5 Gallon tank. It doesn't need light. Keep it in a cool place and it feed off Timothy hay.

[Fishnut]

Shawn, would you mind posting a link to a website or photo of these guys?  I also thought paramecium were microscopic.  I wold be interested in reading more.

[Shawn84]

I wouldn't say there microscopic cause you can see them when you shine light into the culture. They are smaller then micro worm. But you still see them

[HappyGuppy]

Does anybody have any experience raising Daphnia in the Ottawa area?

Thanks

For years I kept cultures of them going and have figured out some easy ways to grow & harvest them.  I'm currently not growing any but do have a baggie with a paper towel full of cysts (eggs) for whenever I may want to grow them again.

How I used to do it is I used to keep a small tank (or even a large jar) in a basement window getting indirect sunlight, and a couple of other large jars beside it to grow greenwater.  In winter I place a small CFL light next to them on 24/7.  I simply toss in some red ramshorn snails in the green jars and feed them flakes.  The snails poop and feed the greenwater.  I then carefully pour some of the greenwater into a cup every other day (or more depending upon how much culture you need) and transfer that to the daphhnia culture.  IMPORTANT - use the cup to transfer from green jars to daphnia culture.  If you splash some water from the daphnia into your green jar then they'll rapidly explode eating all your green jar and you'll have to start over.  Then I used a small brine shrimp net swiveled in figure-8 motion to gather up some daphnia and feed to my guppies (or whatever you're feeding).

Important - make sure you have a clean culture.  If you wild harvest some daphnia (as I did years ago) you must take painstaking measures to ensure you have not hydra, and that the daphnia  carry no other disease.  I simply used a pipette (you can use an eye dropper) to transfer a single dapnia into a clean culture jar and grow that out (doesn't take long).  Then take a sacraficial group of guppies and feed daphnia for 6 months looking for illness (unlikely, but better to be safe than sorry).  If all good then after that you may confidently feed all your fish... or you may chance it after culturing from the single daphnia (low chance of problems).

Or better yet simply get clean culture from someone currently growing them.  However from my past experiences, don't trust anyone, even the most trustworthy Ovas member.  Take their culture, thank them profusely, then take out a single daphnia (or two or three) and start your personal culture with just that. 

[HappyGuppy]

You can culture Paramecium in a jar or a 2.5 Gallon tank. It doesn't need light. Keep it in a cool place and it feed off Timothy hay.

This is another great suggestion.  However they can get a bit stinky at times (bacteria).  My suggestion is you can just move the jar to a window and you'll have plenty of wonderful infusoria from the timothy hay (or you may use many other kinds of plant matter to feed the culture).

[dbl_dbl]

Are you the guy who came to Big Als Innes with tha Habs shirt asking about Daphnia

Glad you found some help, lots of great people on here to get you going

[Habsfan]

That's me! I've found a lot of information here. I just have to go get my culture to get started.

Thanks for pointing me here!