Charlutz
Members
Frank Cowherd used to keep the club pretty well supplied at the auctions every month, but I guess he’s retired? I’m going to try to get a culture going at home but wanted to ask if anyone in the club was working with them. Thanks!
Anyone producing daphnia?
- Thread starter Charlutz
- Start date
Charlutz
Members
I ordered a starter off of Amazon. Cross my fingers and see if I can get this going 🤞🏼
Charlutz
Members
So, just to update … I've been raising daphnia since mid June. There’s a learning curve. I bought a culture on Amazon for $29 including shipping. The first batch arrived DOA from the heat during transport. The seller was really good to work with and refunded immediately. I got a new shipment a week later as they were trying new shipping materials and different cold packs.
I divided the batches into two 10g tanks, each with about 5-6g of water. I feed a mix of yeast and spirulina powder every other day. They reproduce quickly and the colony doubles in count about every 8 days according to the net and consistent with my experience so far.
I’ve “crashed” the colony twice, pretty much due to overfeeding. I think once I let the colony get too dense which probably combined with the overfeeding to result in a quick mass death. Having a second tank that didn’t crash was a life saver.
I’m trying to build the colony back now and have small groups in two tanks. A good lesson is to always have multiple colonies in case of a crash. A good second lesson is that you will eventually crash a colony, so be mindful of lesson one.
The fish love them. It’ll be a week or two before I have enough to start feeding the fish with them again and I look forward to that.
I divided the batches into two 10g tanks, each with about 5-6g of water. I feed a mix of yeast and spirulina powder every other day. They reproduce quickly and the colony doubles in count about every 8 days according to the net and consistent with my experience so far.
I’ve “crashed” the colony twice, pretty much due to overfeeding. I think once I let the colony get too dense which probably combined with the overfeeding to result in a quick mass death. Having a second tank that didn’t crash was a life saver.
I’m trying to build the colony back now and have small groups in two tanks. A good lesson is to always have multiple colonies in case of a crash. A good second lesson is that you will eventually crash a colony, so be mindful of lesson one.
The fish love them. It’ll be a week or two before I have enough to start feeding the fish with them again and I look forward to that.
