# Daphnia Advice



## TBRO (20 Oct 2018)

I’m trying to maintain a culture of Daphnia. I had a go with a small 12 L tank with an air pump, this was set up in my garage, the temp did get low (<10 C) but didn’t freeze. The daphnia survived a few weeks but gradually declined in numbers.

I’m now trying indoors with a 5 L jar, it’s got some dead leaves + some floating plants. My plan is to syphon our a pint a week (with daphnia), pour the daphnia in my tank and top up with tank water.

Previously I tried feeding the daphnia with Alison’s baking yeast with vitamin C. I did this every other day. I noticed that a layer of dead/dormant yeast formed on the bottom of the tank. 

I’m guessing I overfed the daphnia, the cold water caused the yeast to quickly drop out and putrefy on the bottom. This probably led to ammonia and daphnia dying.

This time I will proof the yeast at room temp using tank water and I will feed less, probably once a week. 

Does this sound like a sensible plan? 

Is the vitamin C toxic to the daphnia? 

Any daphnia tips? 

Would like to make this work as I want to try and keep fish like scarlet Badis + all the fish enjoy chasing daphnia! Thanks T 









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## Edvet (20 Oct 2018)

Try to get green water ( lots of light over some tank water and some plantfood should do the trick) and feed that. ( google green water)


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## TBRO (20 Oct 2018)

Thanks Edvet, that’s a good idea. Probably green water much less likely to pollute the culture. 


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## zozo (20 Oct 2018)

Put a bucket of water or 2 or 3 in the garden or on the balkony and put in leaflitter, just leave it and top it of if needed. You can also throw in some moss and or some Elodae.The leaflitter will decay and make the water tea colored. That's what you want.  After a few weeks maturing you might just already find some daphnia in it. Daphnia eggs lift along with other flying insects that hop from water to water. Many other crustateans and aqautic micro organism do as well they. For example they come with mosquito's that also lay their eggs into the water. The micro organism and crusteceans live off the decaying leaflitter.

You can also put a seed it with a life daphnia portion from the lfs.

Anyway after a few weeks you can scoop out lots of goodies for the fish.. Also organism that are barely visible with the naked eye, but the fish do and eat them.

That works best for me also rather well without green water, in some cases it is so clear i can see the leaflitter and all critters crawling over it. I have a 80 litre tub and a few 10 litre buckets in the garden and just leave it to it's own devices.. That way i always catch something..  if not in one than in the other. And can give a bucket some rest to reseed.


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## Fiske (20 Oct 2018)

Last time I bought live daphnia, I put 2 extra portions in my outside tub . Hoping to maintain a steady population here. We'll see. So far so good, nice to have live food just outside the door.


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## TBRO (20 Oct 2018)

Just started to get cold here, I imagine the population would increase only very slowly. After watching some of Rachel O’Leary’s videos, I definitely want to try a tub or two next summer. Might be good for Rainbow fish breeding? 


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## tam (20 Oct 2018)

This is the contents of my tub moved inside for the winter. It's been living on leaf litter all summer as Marcel suggested. The water is tea coloured rather than green but still seems to have done the trick.


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## zozo (20 Oct 2018)

It is extremely tricky to keep daphnia alive in a small volume of water with and feeding them. At one point it might just crash, in my case it always did what ever i tried. Small water volume are just way to easy to completely crash a few drops can make a difference.. Even with green water which obviously is ideal for daphnia, but its in the how to get green water forcefully and keep it green. Some add this other that and a pinch to much at a certain point and it's over..

I used to catch them myself as a kid, in the cows drinking vessels in the farmers meadow.. They were always booming with daphnia and not even once seen it green.. Always cristal clear, not even leaflitter, but bursting with daphnia.. Probably from all the flies etc. hanging around the cows (dumps).  Farmer is gone by now  unfortunately.

Once saw a video where a guy fed them succesfully with flower(s) of different kind instead of yeast or heavy fert solutions. I never tried that..

For me tubs in the garden and leave it be works best but in the colder periods less of course..


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## Hendre (20 Oct 2018)

Agreed with the above. I recently lost my culture to cyclops. So I'll have to turf that one. Bigger tanks are easier to keep them in,


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