20L Desktop Daphnia Tank

[Simon Cole]

@Little - There is a seller on Ebay (called Donald) with live Moina <here>. Earlier in the week I messeged to check it was not daphnia, and he confirmed that it was Moina grown indoors in a separate pest-free culture. I am holding out to see whether I can get a Monia siamensis culture because it's a bit smaller than M. macrocopa... I think that is what you might have above in the new culture @RickyV.

 

[RickyV]

Can now confirm the pale color is indeed related to oxygen. Just one week after adding a trickle layer to my filter the Moina went clear. It's impressive how efficient these trickle filters are, I thought surely the flow in the plant river filter, the surface area from it, the water flow trickling back into the tank, and the plants consuming ammonia would be enough to keep plenty of oxygen. But clearly it wasn't and all it took to correct this was adding the trickle boxes. But now I'm wondering if there is any utility to keeping the Moina clear. They were clearly doing well being oxygen deprived. I kinda miss their old red color lol.

Clear Moina


The trickle boxes I added with K1 media.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I kinda miss their old red color lol.

You can <"add paprika"> into their feed.

cheers Darrel

 

[RickyV]

I have made a new larger version of this culture but with a different feeding idea. This new culture is 37L, connected to a planter on my desk which will grow the hydroponic plants. The water flow from the planter then goes into my trickle filter. A second line is connected to a hydroponic seed starting tray that will grow primarily Dero/Microfex worms and a few blackworms. In this culture I do not plan on doing any direct feeding of the Moina I will only be feeding the worms in the tray. I will likely feed a diet of mostly sweet potato and other veggies as they foul the water much less than dry fish food.