# Daphnia live food harvesting link



## Robbie X (27 Mar 2014)

Found a great link for peeps interested in collecting Daphnia as a source of live food.
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag...roscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artoct01/hwdaphnia.html


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## ourmanflint (27 Mar 2014)

Thanks Robbie, have just set up my own daphnia cultures this week to help feed my gouramis. Always good to have a bit more info though. Yeast seems to be the best food for easy culturing.

Cheers


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## Lee Sweeting (27 Mar 2014)

ourmanflint said:


> Thanks Robbie, have just set up my own daphnia cultures this week to help feed my gouramis. Always good to have a bit more info though. Yeast seems to be the best food for easy culturing.
> 
> Cheers



I use a mix of yeast, baby formula and spirulina. Works a treat 


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## dw1305 (27 Mar 2014)

Hi all, 





Robbie X said:


> Found a great link for peeps interested in collecting Daphnia as a source of live food.


 Microscopy UK is a great site.<http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html>. 





ourmanflint said:


> Yeast seems to be the best food for easy culturing


Yeast works really well, sometimes too well and you have to be a little bit careful as it is really easy to crash the cultures. _Daphnia_ pick up any suitably sized  food item from the water column, and I've used Paprika and Gram flour successfully in the past.

I'm now adding hay or dead leaves to all my cultures, it makes them easier to keep long term, details in the caudata.org link in this thread.  <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/daphnia-farm-in-the-garden-pondering.22445/> & <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/uses-for-phytoplankton-in-fresh-water-setup.24247/>

cheers Darrel


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## Nathaniel Whiteside (27 Mar 2014)

Subscribed to this, as I want to have a go shortly. Thanks for info everyone.


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## ourmanflint (27 Mar 2014)

dw1305 said:


> ..
> I'm now adding hay or dead leaves to all my cultures, it makes them easier to keep long term, details in the caudata.org link in this thread.  <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/daphnia-farm-in-the-garden-pondering.22445/> & <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/uses-for-phytoplankton-in-fresh-water-setup.24247/>
> 
> cheers Darrel



Good idea Darrel. I remember using hay to start Paramecium cultures way back so I'm guessing it's because of the natural infusoria bloom. I think I will try that too.

Cheers


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## Lee Sweeting (27 Mar 2014)

I'm now adding hay or dead leaves to all my cultures, it makes them easier to keep long term, details in the caudata.org link in this thread.  <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/daphnia-farm-in-the-garden-pondering.22445/> & <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/uses-for-phytoplankton-in-fresh-water-setup.24247/>

cheers Darrel[/quote]

Hi Darrel! Great link, thanks for that. 

Have you stopped adding yeast, flour etc all together now? Have you found that the dead leaves/hay are a sufficient food source on there own for the daphnia? 

I have a couple of 40l buckets in my attic, with DIY foam filters. I've been doing small weekly water changes and feed the daphnia daily (small amounts) on a yeast, baby formula and spirulina mix. The leaf/hay method sounds simpler and much easier to maintain, is it really just a case of dumping a handful of leaves in a bucket? 

Thanks,

Lee.


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## DrRob (27 Mar 2014)

Mine are living on a hair algae culture.

Entirely inspired by sloth. Came back from a week away and a low tech had crashed into an algae fest while I was away. In the mess of unpacking the bucket full of water and hair algae got left on the side somewhere sunny. The tank had been fed with daphnia and enough survived to explode in the bucket. They now live in a tank on my windowsill. Lives on water change water from a high tech to fertilise the algae. Can't remember feeding it in the last year or so but it does slow down a lot in winter.


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## dw1305 (27 Mar 2014)

Hi all, 





Lee Sweeting said:


> Have you stopped adding yeast, flour etc all together now? Have you found that the dead leaves/hay are a sufficient food source on there own for the daphnia?


 I have, but mainly because I don't have any specific _Daphnia_ cultures any more, I just have the water butts and buckets outside. Since I had access to our allotment, even in the winter I can usually collect some _Daphnia_  once or twice a week. In the summer I have a pretty limitless supply of mosquito larvae via the same source. 


ourmanflint said:


> I remember using hay to start Paramecium cultures way back so I'm guessing it's because of the natural infusoria bloom.


 I think that probably is the reason. If I went back to culturing _Daphnia_ in a tank, I'd definitely add some hay and probably feed them a bit less frequently. 

The "2  tanks phytoplankton" system works, but I wasn't space limited when I did this because I had the tanks in the greenhouse, and I had easy access to fertilisers etc. The _Chlorella_ is a fiddle to culture, mainly  because you tend to get problems with Rotifers. These are fantastic fry food, but cause the _Chlorella_ culture to crash. You can harvest the Rotifers with a brine shrimp sieve, the _Chlorella_ should pass through the mesh and the Rotifers are retained. This also gives you a clean _Chlorella_ culture to start again with, but it is all an extra faff.

cheers Darrel


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## Lee Sweeting (27 Mar 2014)

dw1305 said:


> I have, but mainly because I don't have any specific Daphnia cultures any more, I just have the water butts and buckets outside. Since I had access to our allotment, even in the winter I can usually collect some Daphnia once or twice a week. In the summer I have a pretty limitless supply of mosquito larvae via the same source.



Thanks Darrel! 

With a view to making things as simple as possible for myself, could i just pop a handful of oak leaves in my culture and leave be? Would this be a sufficient food source for my indoor cultures? 

Thanks Lee.


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## Edvet (27 Mar 2014)

Subscribing.
And: pics please ladies and gentlepeople. So i can shamelessly copy


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## Robbie X (27 Mar 2014)

Some great info and ideas, cheers fellas


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## dw1305 (27 Mar 2014)

Hi all, 





Lee Sweeting said:


> could i just pop a handful of oak leaves in my culture and leave be? Would this be a sufficient food source for my indoor cultures?


 I'm not sure that oak leaves would work, my suspicion is that it needs to be something with both accessible (sugars, starch) and more decomposition resistant carbohydrates (lignocellulosic material). 

You can buy hay for Rabbit feed etc., or "pick your own" in the summer.

cheers Darrel


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## Nathaniel Whiteside (27 Mar 2014)

Anybody have any experience using  This?

How do brine shrimp compare to daphnia as a live food source?


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## Robbie X (27 Mar 2014)

I'll defo be looking to start a Daphnia breeding project. Daphnia would probably breed in a well planted tank with lots of moss as well, that way there would always be something for the fish to hunt.


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## Rob P (27 Mar 2014)

I get Daphnia from my neighbours rain water butt all year round. Someone spotted me last night with head torch on fishing around with my net in the container lol, must think i'm mad.

It slows down a lot in the very cold weather (although i can usually scoop enough for 2/3 feeds a week) but after a bit of sun lately there's freaking loads in there again


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## Robbie X (27 Mar 2014)

Rob P said:


> I get Daphnia from my neighbours rain water butt all year round. Someone spotted me last night with head torch on fishing around with my net in the container lol, must think i'm mad.
> 
> It slows down a lot in the very cold weather (although i can usually scoop enough for 2/3 feeds a week) but after a bit of sun lately there's freaking loads in there again


I need to check my water butt! I did not think about that as a source of Daphnia! Mind, I have never seeded it with pond water or plants so its probably not got any


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## Lee Sweeting (27 Mar 2014)

Nathaniel Whiteside said:


> Anybody have any experience using  This?
> 
> How do brine shrimp compare to daphnia as a live food source?



Yea the JBL hatcher is good (i have one) but you can make the same thing from a pop bottle if you don't want to spend the money. Obviously this is only used to hatch the shrimp so you would need a larger holding tank to grow the shrimp. I just use a 25l plastic storage box which works great. 

I culture brine shrimp, daphina and microworms. The brine shrimp are the most nutritious and can be fed every day. The daphnia are good for fibre, and i only feed these twice a week. The microworms are very fatty and i also feed these twice a week. All are easy to culture, and are relatively cheap to get started.[DOUBLEPOST=1395938064][/DOUBLEPOST]





dw1305 said:


> Hi all,  I'm not sure that oak leaves would work, my suspicion is that it needs to be something with both accessible (sugars, starch) and more decomposition resistant carbohydrates (lignocellulosic material).
> 
> You can buy hay for Rabbit feed etc., or "pick your own" in the summer.
> 
> cheers Darrel



Just been out and bought some rabbit feeding hay, i've popped in one of the cultures and left the other as it was. I'll let know how they compare.

Thanks again Darrel.


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## Rob P (27 Mar 2014)

Robbie X said:


> I need to check my water butt! I did not think about that as a source of Daphnia! Mind, I have never seeded it with pond water or plants so its probably not got any



There's no pond water or plants in the one i use, just rain water. I checked with neighbour if she's ever/does ever put any nasties in there but she's like an old school hippy (old bath tub in back garden to put plants in sort of old dear) so it seems safe to use. In summer I get bloodworm and mozzy larvae in with the scoops as well


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## Robbie X (27 Mar 2014)

I might be in luck then


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## Lee Sweeting (27 Mar 2014)

Edvet said:


> Subscribing.
> And: pics please ladies and gentlepeople. So i can shamelessly copy



There you go ed. This is when I first set the cultures up. I've since done some sub culturing. The big 40l bucket is daphnia, there's also a little DIY sponge filter in there. 

The tub to the left is for rearing brine shrimp. 











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## frothhelmet (9 Apr 2014)

my 2p http://www.lfkc.co.uk/index.php?topic=472.msg3619#msg3619


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## Andy D (9 Apr 2014)

I just have a tub in the garden. It naturally filled with rain water and not long after the daphnia etc turned up. I have done absolutely nothing to it and I know have hundreds of daphnia and other organisms in there. The tub is full of algae on the sides mind you.


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