I was at the garden store today and saw they had buckets with water lilies for sale - one bucket in particular caught my eye as it had a massive daphnia population. I bought the lily so I could get my hands on those excellent daphnia! I'm going to try culturing in a number of containers to try to avoid crashes.
@@pinoylakasradiostreaming5316 it was just the local garden store in my town, not a big box or chain store. They usually just have flowers, trees, herbs, ferns, veg, and very rarely some pond or aquatic plants depending on availability from their supplier.
Thank you for this - I am in a neverending struggle with my daphnia culture. I first started culturing it indoors - and it crashed multiple times. It was aerated, warm, lighted, and fed yeast/spirulina. I eventually moved it outdoors over the summer where it was kept in a 5 gallon bucket. No aeration, no water changes, no food.. just lots of sunshine and whatever bugs fell in, and it did amazingly well. It's now winter again and I've brought it indoors, so I'm trying to learn more in the hope I can keep it alive this season! right now it's still in the five gallon bucket, aerated, lighted, and I've switched to flour and spirulina in the hopes the yeast was my problem. Cross your fingers for me!
Desert Bloom Bettas 🤞fingers crossed! The acclimation of the outdoor daphnia to indoors can be a little tricky...I recommend setting up one or two jar cultures as backup while you acclimate them to an indoor culture. 🤞
Simply Betta Great question! I have raised this strain in 1/2 gallon containers. I just give them a drop or two of food and a good stir once a day. A container like that works well if you just want to produce small quantities of daphnia. 👍
That is really cool, because everywhere I have been reading says smaller containers are really dangerous for daphnia colonies and they can crash really easily. Of course maybe not feeding yeast can really help minimize that risk? These must be those magnums. Do you sell?
Simply Betta The risk of crashing definitely increases in a smaller container, but I do think you're right...the flour mixture is less crash-prone a food than yeast. 👍 I do sell them, shoot me an email on my about page and I'll give you all the details. 😁👍
that is not an question''what do you think how small container to raise daphnia,they multiply fast in large groups and big tanks,so 100daphnia 10litres 1/3 10Gallon is 3 montsh 400daphnia,but e sure to harvest
I was cleaning my jar of plants and was looking for mosquito larvae and saw these little creatures.I knew these were daphnia so I was looking through RUclips and found the perfect videos for daphnia culture.😊
Great info!!! i’ve had problems with the yeast. Maybe I’m overfeeding, but im going to the health food store today to buy all those flours 5:06 that you mentioned.
Excellent video and thanks it was very helpful. I tried daphnia culture few time but always failed but now I will try again. I will use your advice and information. Blessings.
Great video! I’ve been working on trying to culture daphnia for my fish room. It’s been a struggle given my room restriction as well as it often being way too cold outside to do it on a larger scale. So I’m still trying the small-scale indoor setups
rainishell Thanks! The pipe works well, although it began to smell rather like hydrogen sulfide when I first began to drain the tank. I eventually removed it. This is strange, as I had it for quite a long time without this issue.
Thank you for in depth explanation on how to grow daphina, can I use tap water to start culture or is there specific requirement to type of water I need to have to start the culture?
It depends greatly on the strain of daphnia and on your tap water. I find the strain i work with does fine with my treated tap water, but many do not do well with tap water at all.
Great video. I was trying to keep Daphnia in a 60 litre tank, plus a couple of 12 litre jars and some in jam jars as backups. I was mixing yeast and water and keeping it in the fridge but 3 times I found that all seem to crash at the same time after a few weeks. After watching this, I'm thinking it might be the yeast mixture if it was over a week old. So I'm going to give it another try using Spirulina and Flour mixture. I saw in another comment that you use Prime water conditioner which answered a question I had as I heard Daphnia didn't like declorinators. Thanks again and I've subscribed 👍
You’re welcome! I appreciate your subscribing! It could indeed be the yeast, which I now use, but I don’t store in solution, I mix it fresh every time. If it is mixed fresh and thoroughly, it can work, but it is easy to overfeed.
Very good! I could just sit and watch the little life forms in your daphnia tank instead of the fish. I collect mine from the water buts in my allotment. Always plenty in Summer but no so good in our cold winter.
Graham Hall I am glad you have the same fascination with them that I do! 😊 When I culture mine outside, they last from March to October, but the winter is too cold here as well.
Hey! Awesome video and tank set up!! I had a quick question: how did you set up your water? I’ve heard that spring water is ok, but the daphnia require hard water. I currently have soft water aquarium water and natural spring ozonated water at hand but I’m not sure how to get it just right
First I will still need a starter daphnia culture. Tropical storm Fred left a nice puddle and here it turned out to be packed with daphnia. I collected a few hundred in a net and here I am a few days later and there are over a thousand eazy. They grow fast to adults and the reproduction rate continues to the high side. I found this, what I'll call a "wild strain" to be hardy, strong reproducers, survives on just a little algae, rice flour, pea flour, wheat flour and although it's not necessary I add just a VERY small tough of active yeast. Since daphnia are born pregnant it takes no time to to start and have a self suficent culture of daphnia that will reproduce fast enough to feed all your fish and their fry. Pay attention to the video I've attached this comment to. I consider the author to be one of the for most experts in the field of raising not only daphnia cultures but many other types of cultures all good for your, fry through adult fish. I intend next add a culture of his daphnia to hopefully even make my "wild strain" that much stronger. That will have to seen for me to believe, they may already be a better choice that the "Wild strain" I found. Just leave a comment here and I'm sure he will be happy to sell you a starter culture as well.
In this size of tank, I don’t produce a lot, sometimes it is quite a bit higher than this stock level, but the number replenishes itself pretty fast, so I can feed off and have the same number again within days. There are also lots of scuds in the tank, so I can harvest large numbers of those as well. I would like to set up an outdoor stock tank for larger numbers at some point.
Unfortunately I wound up in the hospital since I'll needed to obtain a stater culture of daphnia from you, will.need costs and instructions from you. The daphnia I found from tropical storm John is doing great. I had got maybe 100 a few days ago and now have 500+. Please advise
Hi. I have a question if you're not to busy and don't mind answering! Is a light a necessity, or can i just put it on a window? i live in cold Britain :) I just want to "grow" some in a glass jar.
Hi! A window could work...too much light can be worse than too little though. A north-facing window would be good, as long as the temps don’t get to the point where it is forming ice in the water, you should be ok.
i miss the old days where private fish stoes had a constant supply of brine shrimp and i loved feeding my fish daphne, it would look like my tank was full of them, they called them water fleas and i think the fish loved the way they moved and brought out their natural hunting instinct
I do too. I remember going to the best fish/aquarium stores when I was a kid in the 60's and 70's, even when I lived in a very rural area. It's disappointing now, employees don't know anything about keeping fish, the fish are in horrible shape and there isn't much choice in species, not where I live. I can't find cardinals anywhere, I don't remember the last time I saw a discus tank. What happened to hatchet fish. Saltwater seems to be all the rage but even that is disappointing.
enjoyed this video, just missing "how/where to get start daphnia" .. my tank used to have Daphnia but i've not seem them in awhile or maybe their population is so low i just havent founded them (my new dwarf Gourami might have decimated them lol) ... anyway does 'big box' pet stores have them or need to buy online?
Appreciate your comment about the feeding of yeast. After having great success with pure spirulina powder, I switched to yeast and suffered a major crash in both my culture. I have restarted them with the survivors. I am now back on the spirulina powder feeding and will have to live with negative comments of family and friends on the distinct yellow tint to the water. Is this yellow discoloration, after the the initial green feeding, typical?
pondboss I haven't been using Spirulina as a sole food--only when mixed with the flours--and I haven't noticed a yellow tint...I wonder if that only occurs with pure spirulina? It might be worth trying the flour/spirulina mixture and seeing if makes a difference.
I have a really hard time tolerating the noise that the air bubblers make, the machines are so loud! Is there any way to culture daphnia in a filtered tank versus an aerated tank, or will a filter always suck the daphnia up and kill them?
I wouldn’t recommend a filter, but I have good news for you: you can culture daphnia without aeration. The yields will tend to be lower, but still possible. Just stir the water water up whenever you feed.
Hi,My second batch of Daphnia crashed after a week. Can’t understand what I’m doing wrong??I changed from yeast in my first batch to the flour and spirulina mix in my second. Feeding about 4 ml per day to a colony of 700.Is it my water??Can you recommend a fresh water food that I can culture that is more hardy? I’m feeding wild caught Gourami with smallish mouths. I primarily feed them freshly hatched baby brine 4 times a week. I also feed black worms quite often and flightless fruit flies occasionally. I’ve got a 20 gallon tank set up exclusively for the culture but can’t keep anything alive. Really frustrating. Just want to provide something else to feed. Any advice will help. I’ve spent a lot on the daphnia and would like to try something perhaps easier with my feeder tank.Thanks Russ! Great informative channel!!!
Matt Williams Hi Matt, and thanks for watching! 😊👍 It could be your water, but you could try decreasing the feeding...to every other day or every three days, but if you want a species that you can culture in that tank that is easier, try amphipods/scuds. If you want, you can even culture Daphnia together with scuds with no additional effort. The scuds kick up fine particles of food as they eat, and the Daphnia thrive. If your hours is are eating flightless fruit flies, they should be able to eat scuds. 👍 here is my culture video on the species : ruclips.net/video/BIRyuTnWF6c/видео.html
What do you do with that gallon of water you siphon off? Does it have daphnia in it? Is it what you use to feed your fish? I’ve just discovered your channel, I’ll go watch some more videos to see how you do things. Thank you.
Mega MindyLou I usually try to minimize the Daphnia I catch when I remove water, but if I end up getting a lot, I will usually pour it through a net and feed them to the fish, Thanks so much for watching!
hello I live in Colombia and try to raise daphnia outside, but there is a problem I live in a forest with many small tree frogs, and specially now in the rain season every day they lay hundreds of eggs in all the water they can find, I have thousands of tadpoles and they also get into the buckets with the daphnia and in the tanks with green water to feed the daphnias, I don't know if that might be a problem or do I have to keep the daphnias without tadpoles!? I see you have an air hose making bubbles is that necessary? thanks!
I would recommend using a fine screen to keep the frogs out if you notice they are causing issues. The air hose is not necessary, but it does tend to increase the yields of daphnia quite a bit
Love your videos and I learn a lot from you. What is the yellow thing on the bottom of your tank? My tank have build up of green thing that look like their bio waste but I'm not sure if that is waste or not. I only use Spirulina to feed them and added about 10 snails and one pleco recently hoping to clean up that green thing. Please reply if anyone what that green thing is.
Gajeel Thanks for watching! The yellow thing-is it the chunk of cuttlebone I added to provide calcium, or the layer of detritus? The green stuff on the bottom of your tank is probably detritus...shed skins, waste, etc. I often some of that when I do water changes.
Got couple questions: 1. What is the PH of your daphnia tank? 2. When you do the water change, you mentioned that you don't use the water from fish/plant tanks. In that case, what kind of water do you use to fill up the daphnia tank? My daphnia culture was successfully explode from 100 to 1000s daphnia in a 3g tank less than couple weeks, but it completely crashed right on my 1st water change... :( I believe my mistake was I did a 50% WC w/ mixing 1/2 tank water + 1/2 cooled boiled drinking/tap water... But I couldn't figure out if it's from the 50% WC, or the mixture of the refill water...
I will need to test the pH and let you know, I left my ph test kit at work. 😳 It is very possible that a 50% water change was the problem, if the pH was lower than the replacement water, it could have caused ammonium to change to ammonia. On the other hand, it could have been tapwater, there are often traces of heavy metals in it that will kill them.
I have a sealed jar of pond water with multiple snails, daphnia, seed shrimp, cyclops, duckweed and Canadian pondweed. What I noticed over time is that the seed shrimp inside evolved to be smaller, whilst the daphnia became larger. My cyclops also became very few in number. Quite interesting ecosystem. I also never feed them. Sun is all they need!
Thanks again for a great tutorial, this one on daphnia. I was hoping you could share the type of daphnia that are the easiest to raise and to find on the market? Is it possible to tell if you’re getting what they say you’re buying?
Mark Von Feldt you’re welcome! Daphnia pulex are common, and fairly easy. Moina species are very similar to daphnia, yet even easier. It can be difficult to tell which species you are getting without a look at the daphnia/ephippia under a microscope. The ones I have, for example, were sold as ‘Russian Red Daphnia,’ without a scientific name. I believe there were two species in the initial culture, but one has since disappeared.
You want to get as large of a container as is feasible for these cultures. I think 50 gallons and up will result in a much more stable culture. Great video, love your channel.
Can you explain why you keep the sponge in the aquarium? And how did you get it to sink? I'm really glad I found this video, because I was thinking of some kind of PVC siphon for my daphnia culture, but it is nice to see it in action!
Ivy Greene great questions! The sponge helps provide surface area for beneficial bacteria, as well as for the scuds That live with the Daphnia. Once the air bubbles were gone, it sank very easily. I squeezed it a few times underwater to help with that. The PVC siphon worked well, but started to smell after a while, every time I used it, so while it is functional, I decided to remove it.
I always culture my daphnia outdoors with direct sunlight, i wonder if it can be cultured indoors without any light source, probably will try it in my next project. Thanks for the video though ...
Hello I can't seem to find Green Pea Flour I saw in one of your videos where you have the daphnia in a jar and you have a mix of Spirulina Powder, Brown Rice Flour, and Pea/Garbanzo Flour for food but in this one you use the same things but add wheat flour, and Green Pea Flour for a food source other than the two added is both safe to use or any different from the other? Other than just adding two other ingredients? I'm about or order some daphnia to feed to my baby Axolotls and want to get a good system going before my axolotls hatch
Ashley Green I notice the best results when I mix spirulina with several flours, but garbanzo flour is fine instead of green pea powder if you are unable to find it. However, if you do a search for “pea protein powder” you should find some.
bill and ben If you got them indoors, just about anything that is comfortable for you is comfortable for them. My room temps vary between about 18 C in winter to 26 C in summer, and they are fine all year. 👍🏽
2 questions if you dont mind: 1- why not use a sponge filter? Isnt it important to keep water quality? It can do it as well as aerate? 2- what do we do with the debris which collects at the bottom? suck it out or leave it? When you do water changes do you suck from the bottom? 3- sunlight helps with algae growth so is good, but it also increases water temp. Is there a temperature which you would say is the maximum for a healthy culture?
Sponge filters, at least clean ones, tend to remove the particulate food the daphnia need. From the water column. Frequent partial water changes and algae growth help improve water quality, as well as healthy bacterial populations on the surface area in the tank. I periodically remove a portion of the debris from the bottom with water changes. 👍🏽
@@Aquarimax Thank you so much for the lightning fast response! I added one last question about temperature...asking is there a maximum temperature you think should be avoided? Thanks again for sharing, very informative and high quality information!
You’re welcome! I have kept these daphnia outside in temps over 100. F....of course, the water temp was probably in the 80s F. I would try to keep it Below 85.
Aaron Chaiklin Thank you! To start my cultures, I just got some Daphnia from another local aquarist, and later added the scuds . Hydra are not uncommon in planted aquaria as hitchhikers...they usually go unnoticed, in very small numbers, unless they encounter a plentiful food source, such as Daphnia, newly hatched brine shrimp, microworms, etc.
@@Aquarimax I was going to pick up a culture, but will wait a few weeks, until things start improving. I currently have plenty of food for my betta, need to treat algae in my tank right now, I'll give you an update when I'm up and running. Thanks
Out of curiosity why not kill off the hydra? Fenbendazole (dog dewormer) is very aquarium safe even for shrimp and snails and itll knock out ur hydra in a few days time. Well.. maybe not that soon I caught mine early cuz I wanted to keep shrimp. Best of luck thanks so much for the info!
Caity Stepleton Yes, if you notice the hydra in time, that is a very effective way to control them. I am not entirely sure it is safe for daphnia, as they tend to be very sensitive to chemicals. It may be just fine for them. A good tip, and worth a try for sure if your daphnia tank has hydra, as leaving the hydra in there will surely result in the demise of your daphnia. 👍
@@Aquarimax oh my bad I was thinking the hydra were in ur other tank not the daphnia tank. It may do something I'm not certain. I would assume hydra would harm daphnia or do they coexist?
Caity Stepleton Ah, I see. I don’t currently have any issues with hydra...I haven’t seen any for years, but since I have planted tanks, I don’t use water from those tanks in the slim chance that I could introduce a hydra. Hydra will feed on daphnia, and if left unchecked, will quickly wipe out a daphnia culture. 👍
Thanks for your videos on Daphnia. I've setup a 10 gallon and a couple mason jars as backup. The colonies are growing but my ammonia is reading from 1 to 2 ppm, nitrite around .5 ppm and nitrite and 10ppm for nitrate. I've been doing 25% water changes daily that helps but it goes right back up. Do you see this kind of readings with your daphnia tanks? I'm feeding 6-10 ml of spirulina mix that's 1/8 tsp spirulina to 1/4 cup water.
Awesome timing on this video, I just got my hands on some Daphnia Magna and some Daphnia Pulex a week ago. I've been feeding them yeast and am a little confused about the feeding amount. Based on what I was told I should be using around 1/8th of a teaspoon of yeast for my 2 10 gallon tanks, then feed when the water clears up. But...my water has been getting clear within 4-6 hrs of feeding, rather than 2-3 days as I expected. I only have a small amount of daphnia in each tank so I thought the tanks would stay cloudy longer. My setup is pretty much the same as yours, 10 gallon tanks with a sponge filter and a little java moss. I also have ramshorn and pond snails in my tanks. Maybe I should switch to using flour as you do, seems easier to me. Also need to get some spirulina powder!
Glad to know it is helpful! The sponge filter may actually be filtering some of the yeast out of the water. I would recommend keeping the sponge filter in the tank for surface area but detaching it from the airline. Just let airline bubble. And I agree...the flour mixture is easier! It works without spirulina, just with somewhat lower production.
Something I have been doing for a while now, based on a tip from Adam B. I add Aqueon algae rounds whole. The scuds I keep with the daphnia munch on the algae rounds and release a cloud of fine particles into the water, which the daphnia eat. It works great!
Wonderful, helpful informative video. I'd like to start culturing daphnia for my schoutedeni puffers. Can I buy a starter culture from you? I live in the midwest USA
Hi! This has been the most helpful vids for indoor Daphnia culture I've come across. I'm growing D. magna for a local pet store, feeding with a combo of micronized rice bran and Chlorella algae. I had trouble with excessive bacteria in my 15 gal. tubs, probably from overfeeding, according to what you've stated about 10ml feedings. I'm trying to get to 10K+ per tub, which is much denser than what appears in your tank. I've also put homemade sponge filters in the tanks, which seem to collect much of the suspended rice bran. either way, it seems to disappear in a few hours. would I still get max production with such a light feed, and once a day? I've heard everywhere how easy it is to overfeed, so I thought I'd ask. PS: Your culture videos are generous and very helpful.
Fritz Wilhelm Hi! I’m very glad that you find my my videos helpful! I suspect your sponge filters are removing a lot of the food from the water column before the daphnia can get to it, but then that food is still available in the filter to feed the bacteria. You might try removing a sponge filter from one of the tubs and seeing how production and bacterial growth differ. High-density cultures like you describe are easier with Moina than with daphnia. You might be able to manage it, but such cultures are more prone to crashes. You will probably need to feed a little more heavily than I do, but I would build up gradually. The nice thing is that you can have experimental and control tubs to tweak variables. Best of luck to you, let me know how it goes, or if I can offer any more help! 😊👍
Thank you sir! My magnas will undoubtedly thank you as well. You are right about the moina. They don't call them mo' mo' moina for nothing! I'll keep in touch and tell you what succeeds.
Ryin88 It just works by siphon: once it is primed (by filling it completely with water and putting in into the tank without getting any air in it), I just have to turn the knob to turn it on. It works well, but the downside is that the water inside the tubing goes anoxic, so it smells like sulfur for a few seconds when I turn it on. For that reason, I don’t really use it anymore.
Hi, and thanks so much for all the awesome info and advice that you share. I was wondering if you've heard of anyone using powdered nutritional yeast, or Bacter AE in a food mix?
I've used bacter ae with spiraling and bee pollen. It was in my outdoor tubs though, so they had other sources of food. It definitely didn't harm the culture though, and it works well for shrimp so I assume the daphnia like it too
I am currently trying my hand at daphnia. So far I am doing well, and your video showed me the error in my ways; I was trying to do too much. I have a question I hope you can answer. I have some type of worm-ish things in the daphnia tank. I see them on the glass, and I see some free swimming that look like little S's. I believe that both the glass ones and free swimming ones are the same. Any idea what they are, or if they are harmful to either my fish or daphnia? If they are harmful, do I have to start over, or do you have tips you could share on getting rid of them safely in my daphnia tank?
Trishelle DeCoite they could be, and probably are, detritus worms. If so, they are harmless to fish and daphnia, and are in fact an additional live food for your fish. 👍
Aquarimax I tried to culture them before but unfortunately they all dead maybe because I over feed them or maybe it was to cold I don't know the reason but now I switched up to triops to isopods(pillbugs) and there amazing creatures I just love them they look cool and very easy to keep and there just amazing 😉
Jake Grammer I keep them at room temperature, the ambient temperature varying between 65 and 78 F in the room, depending on season. They aren’t picky that way. I do sell them. You can go to my ‘about’ page on RUclips, and email me from there, and I will send a price list. 👍
professorM I have raised a few different species of fairy shrimp, I really enjoy them! In this video I show the first week or two of my beavertail fairy shrimp project: ruclips.net/video/kVksiIuxr0c/видео.html and here is one of my really old videos of some redtail fairy shrimp I raised: ruclips.net/video/u2ZutzFiaBs/видео.html (you can see Daphnia, clam shrimp, and seed shrimp in the aquarium as well.)
professorM The two features in the videos need a dormant egg stage, as far as I know. I kept another species (found locally) that did not need a dormant stage...nauplii just appeared in the tank. I have looked into that Thai species a bit, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Linden Edwards The food powered mix is pretty flexible, but yes 1:1:1 ratio works well. Spirulina, rice flour, and pea or garbanzo flour work really well with no other ingredients 😊👍
I have some daphnia in a jar that I got out of a lake (I wasn’t really expecting to get anything I was just wondering what I could get out of the water, I mainly was just looking to get some free plants) and I was wondering how long I should have the culture going before feeding it to the fish. I have four minnows so I don’t need a ton of food for them I just want to improve their diet a bit. Can they live in the jar without the huge setup? Also what temperature should I keep it at because I have a spare heater laying around I just don’t know what to set it at.
Spivey C I made a video specifically about culturing daphnia in a jar: ruclips.net/video/b0ZlwtjJu9c/видео.html. It should give you the information you need. 😊👍Room temperature will be fine, no need for a heater.
Thanks for the informative video. Would you please share me if you have an experiance of feeding spirulina powder alone for Daphnia culture? I am struggling to grow using spirulina powder, but they die with in five days.
It depends on the mineral content of the water, and also if there are any hydra hiding out in your betta tanks. If your water has some natural mineral content it should work.
Hi i have a question regarding the Daphnia culture. In case i don't have any access to natural source of water what kind of water can I use for the proper growth of the culture ?
@@malayaghosh2278 it depends on the daphnia and the water source. I use dechlorinated water for mine, and they do well, but with other strains of daphnia or different water, results could vary.
Fish in with the daphnia? Well, the daphnia wouldn’t last very long, but the water quality in a daphnia I tank isn’t necessarily the best suited to fish.
@@Aquarimax Couldnt they coexist in a tank somehow? Say it was one small fish that could never eat alll of the daphnia so they could keep reproducing and the fish would still be able to eat some daphnias everyday no worries... OR I could culture the daphnia in a semi closed area inside the tank like a cave of sorts that the fish couldnt enter but the dapnia could get out from time to time... how about it? :)
I have a brand new 10 gallon tank that's been here for about 3 years. Do I have to let it go through the whole nitrogen cycle or can the Daphnia be added in 2 weeks or so?
Michael Wells Good question! I would suggest cycling the tank completely, or just adding a very small amount of daphnia at first, and feed lightly. With such a low bioload it won't be too much of an issue, and the beneficial bacteria population will increase as the daphnia do. Alternatively, if you are sure you don't have any hydra in your aquariums, you could drop in some nice funky filter media from an established tank and you'd be good to go immediately.
Thanks for the informative video! I am about to buy Daphnia for my Advanced higher Biology project, and i was just wondering if i could just feed them wheat flour alone? Or even just yeast. Also how long would they live for if i were to feed them this diet? Thanks
Seow Weisin Thank you! Yes, it is good to siphon some of the detritus out of the tank at each water change. I don’t suggest removing it all at once, though.
Hi I just watched this entire video and I am now inspired to start a daphnia culture, but I'd like to know whether freeze-dried daphnia can be used to feed betta fry, because I can't seem to find any info on this on google. What is your opinion?
Nashorn Great question. Freeze-dried daphnia would tend to be too large until the daphnia fry had had some time to grow. For betta fry I used Infusoria and vinegar eels, then switched to baby brine shrimp and walterworms.
@@Aquarimax If thats the case, would it be advisable to feed live daphnia besides the choices you suggested to betta fry as their first feed? I'm thinking of breeding betta, but the last time I tried growing my betta fry I foolishly used store-bought fish food that was way too big for the betta fry to eat, resulting in the widespread destruction of the fry.
New sub, thank you for this video. It's the most helpful one on daphnia that I've watched, and there have been quite a few!
Alyxandra Ramsey Thank you, I am glad it is helpful! 😊👍
I was at the garden store today and saw they had buckets with water lilies for sale - one bucket in particular caught my eye as it had a massive daphnia population. I bought the lily so I could get my hands on those excellent daphnia! I'm going to try culturing in a number of containers to try to avoid crashes.
fossphur Awesome find! Great idea to keep in multiple containers. Good luck! 👍
What's the name of the store you saw the daphnia? Thank you
@@pinoylakasradiostreaming5316 it was just the local garden store in my town, not a big box or chain store. They usually just have flowers, trees, herbs, ferns, veg, and very rarely some pond or aquatic plants depending on availability from their supplier.
Smart move! Lucky you!
I appreciate this video. Very informative and you didn't purposely waste anyone's time. Thx.
I’ve watched your videos over and over again. And honestly thanks to your information my daphnia are B O O M I N G
Curtis Dunnigan Excellent! That is just what I like to hear 👍🏽
Have you tried using 2×1pond with chicken poop or quail poop?
You can harvest over 100ml a day:)
Really looking forward to make myself a 3×1m pond
Ferdian Betta fish you can harvest huge amounts from a pond. I want to try that someday.
@@Aquarimax you can watch some tutorial from indonesian video they are always want 1kg a day😅
@@ferdianbettafish3659 How long has your lived using poultry poop?
Bruh... Had this video cast to the TV & was on the hunt for that damn cricket lurking by your recording equipment...
Ive watched loads of different live food guides and yours are by far the best. No nonsense just easy to digest direct and simple instructions brill.
Thank you for this - I am in a neverending struggle with my daphnia culture. I first started culturing it indoors - and it crashed multiple times. It was aerated, warm, lighted, and fed yeast/spirulina. I eventually moved it outdoors over the summer where it was kept in a 5 gallon bucket. No aeration, no water changes, no food.. just lots of sunshine and whatever bugs fell in, and it did amazingly well. It's now winter again and I've brought it indoors, so I'm trying to learn more in the hope I can keep it alive this season! right now it's still in the five gallon bucket, aerated, lighted, and I've switched to flour and spirulina in the hopes the yeast was my problem. Cross your fingers for me!
Desert Bloom Bettas 🤞fingers crossed! The acclimation of the outdoor daphnia to indoors can be a little tricky...I recommend setting up one or two jar cultures as backup while you acclimate them to an indoor culture. 🤞
Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely do that. I have an empty breeder tank I'll start another culture in, just in case!
Desert Bloom Bettas good plan, and I hope I goes well! 😊👍
Where did you get your starter daphnia?
@@pinoylakasradiostreaming5316 ebay
What do you think is the minimum container size to raise daphnia?
Simply Betta Great question! I have raised this strain in 1/2 gallon containers. I just give them a drop or two of food and a good stir once a day. A container like that works well if you just want to produce small quantities of daphnia. 👍
That is really cool, because everywhere I have been reading says smaller containers are really dangerous for daphnia colonies and they can crash really easily. Of course maybe not feeding yeast can really help minimize that risk?
These must be those magnums. Do you sell?
Simply Betta The risk of crashing definitely increases in a smaller container, but I do think you're right...the flour mixture is less crash-prone a food than yeast. 👍 I do sell them, shoot me an email on my about page and I'll give you all the details. 😁👍
that is not an question''what do you think how small container to raise daphnia,they multiply fast in large groups and big tanks,so 100daphnia 10litres 1/3 10Gallon is 3 montsh 400daphnia,but e sure to harvest
I was cleaning my jar of plants and was looking for mosquito larvae and saw these little creatures.I knew these were daphnia so I was looking through RUclips and found the perfect videos for daphnia culture.😊
Great info!!! i’ve had problems with the yeast. Maybe I’m overfeeding, but im going to the health food store today to buy all those flours 5:06 that you mentioned.
Love the idea of flour and spiralina. Yeast is a variable live organism; great information.
Thanks for posting this! I’m going to set up a daphnia culture soon to give my Sparkling Gouramis as live food
Wingless Excellent! The gouramis will love it!
How did it turn out
Excellent video and thanks it was very helpful. I tried daphnia culture few time but always failed but now I will try again. I will use your advice and information. Blessings.
Luis Pérez-Ruiz Thank Luis! I am glad it is helpful! Best of luck with your daphnia culture, and feel free to ask me any questions you may have.
I love daphnia!
Shawn Hardy me too! 😊👍
I'm writing a parody song about this genus and it's fun learning about them to see if I can make my lyrics better.
I would love to hear it!
thank you very much for sharing this video. it's a big help for my fish!!
herbman herbman you are very welcome! I am glad you find it helpful!
Thank you for this. Best tutorial on how to raise daphnia that I've seen. Looking forward to sharing my success!
Great video! I’ve been working on trying to culture daphnia for my fish room. It’s been a struggle given my room restriction as well as it often being way too cold outside to do it on a larger scale. So I’m still trying the small-scale indoor setups
Philthy Tanks Best of luck! How big is the aquarium you are using to culture them?
that tip at 1:20 i've never seen that with the pvc pipe. thanks a lot!
rainishell Thanks! The pipe works well, although it began to smell rather like hydrogen sulfide when I first began to drain the tank. I eventually removed it. This is strange, as I had it for quite a long time without this issue.
@@Aquarimax so would u recommend that with a regular fish tank? thanks
Benjamin Codilla I would be concerned fish might swim up the pipe.
@@Aquarimax true but its only one beta fish. might be a future project i consider with another tank
Thank you for in depth explanation on how to grow daphina, can I use tap water to start culture or is there specific requirement to type of water I need to have to start the culture?
It depends greatly on the strain of daphnia and on your tap water. I find the strain i work with does fine with my treated tap water, but many do not do well with tap water at all.
Great video.
I was trying to keep Daphnia in a 60 litre tank, plus a couple of 12 litre jars and some in jam jars as backups.
I was mixing yeast and water and keeping it in the fridge but 3 times I found that all seem to crash at the same time after a few weeks.
After watching this, I'm thinking it might be the yeast mixture if it was over a week old.
So I'm going to give it another try using Spirulina and Flour mixture.
I saw in another comment that you use Prime water conditioner which answered a question I had as I heard Daphnia didn't like declorinators.
Thanks again and I've subscribed 👍
You’re welcome! I appreciate your subscribing!
It could indeed be the yeast, which I now use, but I don’t store in solution, I mix it fresh every time. If it is mixed fresh and thoroughly, it can work, but it is easy to overfeed.
Very good! I could just sit and watch the little life forms in your daphnia tank instead of the fish. I collect mine from the water buts in my allotment. Always plenty in Summer but no so good in our cold winter.
Graham Hall I am glad you have the same fascination with them that I do! 😊 When I culture mine outside, they last from March to October, but the winter is too cold here as well.
Best daphnia breeding video. Now, it's easy!
roger sfc Glad it is helpful! 😊👍
Hey! Awesome video and tank set up!! I had a quick question: how did you set up your water? I’ve heard that spring water is ok, but the daphnia require hard water. I currently have soft water aquarium water and natural spring ozonated water at hand but I’m not sure how to get it just right
Thank you! I'd try the aquarium water or the spring water.
First I will still need a starter daphnia culture.
Tropical storm Fred left a nice puddle and here it turned out to be packed with daphnia. I collected a few hundred in a net and here I am a few days later and there are over a thousand eazy. They grow fast to adults and the reproduction rate continues to the high side.
I found this, what I'll call a "wild strain" to be hardy, strong reproducers, survives on just a little algae, rice flour, pea flour, wheat flour and although it's not necessary I add just a VERY small tough of active yeast. Since daphnia are born pregnant it takes no time to to start and have a self suficent culture of daphnia that will reproduce fast enough to feed all your fish and their fry.
Pay attention to the video I've attached this comment to. I consider the author to be one of the for most experts in the field of raising not only daphnia cultures but many other types of cultures all good for your, fry through adult fish.
I intend next add a culture of his daphnia to hopefully even make my "wild strain" that much stronger. That will have to seen for me to believe, they may already be a better choice that the "Wild strain" I found.
Just leave a comment here and I'm sure he will be happy to sell you a starter culture as well.
Is that a typical stock level for your daphnia? My Endler's would go through that amount I a day.
In this size of tank, I don’t produce a lot, sometimes it is quite a bit higher than this stock level, but the number replenishes itself pretty fast, so I can feed off and have the same number again within days. There are also lots of scuds in the tank, so I can harvest large numbers of those as well. I would like to set up an outdoor stock tank for larger numbers at some point.
Unfortunately I wound up in the hospital since I'll needed to obtain a stater culture of daphnia from you, will.need costs and instructions from you.
The daphnia I found from tropical storm John is doing great. I had got maybe 100 a few days ago and now have 500+. Please advise
Hi. I have a question if you're not to busy and don't mind answering! Is a light a necessity, or can i just put it on a window? i live in cold Britain :) I just want to "grow" some in a glass jar.
Hi! A window could work...too much light can be worse than too little though. A north-facing window would be good, as long as the temps don’t get to the point where it is forming ice in the water, you should be ok.
Fabulous Live food to culture and another Fabulous Aquarimax video!!
colinbarsby 😁👍 Thank you Colin, music to my ears!
WHERE CAN A GET DAPHNIA TO START MINE?
i miss the old days where private fish stoes had a constant supply of brine shrimp and i loved feeding my fish daphne, it would look like my tank was full of them, they called them water fleas and i think the fish loved the way they moved and brought out their natural hunting instinct
I do too. I remember going to the best fish/aquarium stores when I was a kid in the 60's and 70's, even when I lived in a very rural area.
It's disappointing now, employees don't know anything about keeping fish, the fish are in horrible shape and there isn't much choice in species, not where I live. I can't find cardinals anywhere, I don't remember the last time I saw a discus tank. What happened to hatchet fish.
Saltwater seems to be all the rage but even that is disappointing.
Sir,This Mixer How many days can keep in a Refrigerator?Is it not spoiled?
cichlidpark sri lanka It lasts more than a month for me, usually. 👍
enjoyed this video, just missing "how/where to get start daphnia" .. my tank used to have Daphnia but i've not seem them in awhile or maybe their population is so low i just havent founded them (my new dwarf Gourami might have decimated them lol) ... anyway does 'big box' pet stores have them or need to buy online?
Generally you big box pet stores do not carry them, but www.Aquabid.com usually has them.
Appreciate your comment about the feeding of yeast. After having great success with pure spirulina powder, I switched to yeast and suffered a major crash in both my culture. I have restarted them with the survivors. I am now back on the spirulina powder feeding and will have to live with negative comments of family and friends on the distinct yellow tint to the water. Is this yellow discoloration, after the the initial green feeding, typical?
pondboss I haven't been using Spirulina as a sole food--only when mixed with the flours--and I haven't noticed a yellow tint...I wonder if that only occurs with pure spirulina? It might be worth trying the flour/spirulina mixture and seeing if makes a difference.
I will give using some sort of flour + spirulina mix it a try after I build my cultures back up. But I am committed to staying away from yeast.
pondboss sounds good! If you have a chance, let me know how your cultures respond. 👍
I have a really hard time tolerating the noise that the air bubblers make, the machines are so loud! Is there any way to culture daphnia in a filtered tank versus an aerated tank, or will a filter always suck the daphnia up and kill them?
I wouldn’t recommend a filter, but I have good news for you: you can culture daphnia without aeration. The yields will tend to be lower, but still possible. Just stir the water water up whenever you feed.
Hi,My second batch of Daphnia crashed after a week. Can’t understand what I’m doing wrong??I changed from yeast in my first batch to the flour and spirulina mix in my second. Feeding about 4 ml per day to a colony of 700.Is it my water??Can you recommend a fresh water food that I can culture that is more hardy? I’m feeding wild caught Gourami with smallish mouths. I primarily feed them freshly hatched baby brine 4 times a week. I also feed black worms quite often and flightless fruit flies occasionally. I’ve got a 20 gallon tank set up exclusively for the culture but can’t keep anything alive. Really frustrating. Just want to provide something else to feed. Any advice will help. I’ve spent a lot on the daphnia and would like to try something perhaps easier with my feeder tank.Thanks Russ! Great informative channel!!!
Matt Williams Hi Matt, and thanks for watching! 😊👍
It could be your water, but you could try decreasing the feeding...to every other day or every three days, but if you want a species that you can culture in that tank that is easier, try amphipods/scuds. If you want, you can even culture Daphnia together with scuds with no additional effort. The scuds kick up fine particles of food as they eat, and the Daphnia thrive. If your hours is are eating flightless fruit flies, they should be able to eat scuds. 👍 here is my culture video on the species : ruclips.net/video/BIRyuTnWF6c/видео.html
What do you do with that gallon of water you siphon off? Does it have daphnia in it? Is it what you use to feed your fish? I’ve just discovered your channel, I’ll go watch some more videos to see how you do things. Thank you.
Mega MindyLou I usually try to minimize the Daphnia I catch when I remove water, but if I end up getting a lot, I will usually pour it through a net and feed them to the fish, Thanks so much for watching!
hello I live in Colombia and try to raise daphnia outside, but there is a problem I live in a forest with many small tree frogs, and specially now in the rain season every day they lay hundreds of eggs in all the water they can find, I have thousands of tadpoles and they also get into the buckets with the daphnia and in the tanks with green water to feed the daphnias, I don't know if that might be a problem or do I have to keep the daphnias without tadpoles!? I see you have an air hose making bubbles is that necessary? thanks!
I would recommend using a fine screen to keep the frogs out if you notice they are causing issues.
The air hose is not necessary, but it does tend to increase the yields of daphnia quite a bit
Love your videos and I learn a lot from you. What is the yellow thing on the bottom of your tank? My tank have build up of green thing that look like their bio waste but I'm not sure if that is waste or not. I only use Spirulina to feed them and added about 10 snails and one pleco recently hoping to clean up that green thing. Please reply if anyone what that green thing is.
Gajeel Thanks for watching! The yellow thing-is it the chunk of cuttlebone I added to provide calcium, or the layer of detritus? The green stuff on the bottom of your tank is probably detritus...shed skins, waste, etc. I often some of that when I do water changes.
Got couple questions:
1. What is the PH of your daphnia tank?
2. When you do the water change, you mentioned that you don't use the water from fish/plant tanks.
In that case, what kind of water do you use to fill up the daphnia tank?
My daphnia culture was successfully explode from 100 to 1000s daphnia in a 3g tank less than couple weeks, but it completely crashed right on my 1st water change... :(
I believe my mistake was I did a 50% WC w/ mixing 1/2 tank water + 1/2 cooled boiled drinking/tap water...
But I couldn't figure out if it's from the 50% WC, or the mixture of the refill water...
I will need to test the pH and let you know, I left my ph test kit at work. 😳 It is very possible that a 50% water change was the problem, if the pH was lower than the replacement water, it could have caused ammonium to change to ammonia. On the other hand, it could have been tapwater, there are often traces of heavy metals in it that will kill them.
I have a sealed jar of pond water with multiple snails, daphnia, seed shrimp, cyclops, duckweed and Canadian pondweed. What I noticed over time is that the seed shrimp inside evolved to be smaller, whilst the daphnia became larger. My cyclops also became very few in number.
Quite interesting ecosystem. I also never feed them. Sun is all they need!
Do you have videos of this system?
Thanks again for a great tutorial, this one on daphnia. I was hoping you could share the type of daphnia that are the easiest to raise and to find on the market? Is it possible to tell if you’re getting what they say you’re buying?
Mark Von Feldt you’re welcome! Daphnia pulex are common, and fairly easy. Moina species are very similar to daphnia, yet even easier. It can be difficult to tell which species you are getting without a look at the daphnia/ephippia under a microscope. The ones I have, for example, were sold as ‘Russian Red Daphnia,’ without a scientific name. I believe there were two species in the initial culture, but one has since disappeared.
You want to get as large of a container as is feasible for these cultures. I think 50 gallons and up will result in a much more stable culture. Great video, love your channel.
sedghammer Thank you! 😊👍 I agree, the larger they are, the better in terms of production and stability.
Can you explain why you keep the sponge in the aquarium? And how did you get it to sink? I'm really glad I found this video, because I was thinking of some kind of PVC siphon for my daphnia culture, but it is nice to see it in action!
Ivy Greene great questions! The sponge helps provide surface area for beneficial bacteria, as well as for the scuds That live with the Daphnia. Once the air bubbles were gone, it sank very easily. I squeezed it a few times underwater to help with that. The PVC siphon worked well, but started to smell after a while, every time I used it, so while it is functional, I decided to remove it.
Awesome, thanks!
I always culture my daphnia outdoors with direct sunlight, i wonder if it can be cultured indoors without any light source,
probably will try it in my next project. Thanks for the video though ...
Hello I can't seem to find Green Pea Flour I saw in one of your videos where you have the daphnia in a jar and you have a mix of Spirulina Powder, Brown Rice Flour, and Pea/Garbanzo Flour for food but in this one you use the same things but add wheat flour, and Green Pea Flour for a food source other than the two added is both safe to use or any different from the other? Other than just adding two other ingredients? I'm about or order some daphnia to feed to my baby Axolotls and want to get a good system going before my axolotls hatch
Ashley Green I notice the best results when I mix spirulina with several flours, but garbanzo flour is fine instead of green pea powder if you are unable to find it. However, if you do a search for “pea protein powder” you should find some.
Hi I’ve watched a couple of times I don’t hear you talk about temperature, do you have any advice on that? Thanks Lee
I have kept them in 100F weather and under an inch of ice. They are very hardy when it comes to temperature
Hi Max.. another great video!! =D ♥♥
DebTim A CANADIAN Girl Many thanks Deb!
Hay bud great info what water temperature do daphnia like mate
bill and ben If you got them indoors, just about anything that is comfortable for you is comfortable for them. My room temps vary between about 18 C in winter to 26 C in summer, and they are fine all year. 👍🏽
The daphnia are doing well. Have gone from a few to several hundred in the tank. How long do you refrigerate the food mixed for them?
Glad to hear it!
The refrigerated mixed liquid will last at least a month, and the powder lasts even longer in the fridge...probably 6-12 months.
Awesome video! Just wanted to say, your voice is so, I dunno, announcer-like, and is very nice to listen to. XD
The Turtle Girl Thank you, I appreciate that! 😊👍
2 questions if you dont mind: 1- why not use a sponge filter? Isnt it important to keep water quality? It can do it as well as aerate? 2- what do we do with the debris which collects at the bottom? suck it out or leave it? When you do water changes do you suck from the bottom? 3- sunlight helps with algae growth so is good, but it also increases water temp. Is there a temperature which you would say is the maximum for a healthy culture?
Sponge filters, at least clean ones, tend to remove the particulate food the daphnia need. From the water column. Frequent partial water changes and algae growth help improve water quality, as well as healthy bacterial populations on the surface area in the tank. I periodically remove a portion of the debris from the bottom with water changes. 👍🏽
@@Aquarimax Thank you so much for the lightning fast response! I added one last question about temperature...asking is there a maximum temperature you think should be avoided? Thanks again for sharing, very informative and high quality information!
You’re welcome! I have kept these daphnia outside in temps over 100. F....of course, the water temp was probably in the 80s F. I would try to keep it
Below 85.
How do you start you cultures and how did you get hydra into your planted tanks? These videos are very informative. Thank you!
Aaron Chaiklin Thank you! To start my cultures, I just got some Daphnia from another local aquarist, and later added the scuds . Hydra are not uncommon in planted aquaria as hitchhikers...they usually go unnoticed, in very small numbers, unless they encounter a plentiful food source, such as Daphnia, newly hatched brine shrimp, microworms, etc.
Highly informative, thank you. Would distilled water be a good choice to grow my colony? Is bottled water a better choice?
Fred Knox bottled spring water is better than distilled They do need some minerals in the water. 👍
@@Aquarimax I'll give it a go, thank you
Fred Knox let me know how it turns out 👍
@@Aquarimax I was going to pick up a culture, but will wait a few weeks, until things start improving. I currently have plenty of food for my betta, need to treat algae in my tank right now, I'll give you an update when I'm up and running. Thanks
Fred Knox sounds good. Waiting a few weeks at this point could be prudent. 👍
Out of curiosity why not kill off the hydra? Fenbendazole (dog dewormer) is very aquarium safe even for shrimp and snails and itll knock out ur hydra in a few days time. Well.. maybe not that soon I caught mine early cuz I wanted to keep shrimp. Best of luck thanks so much for the info!
Caity Stepleton Yes, if you notice the hydra in time, that is a very effective way to control them. I am not entirely sure it is safe for daphnia, as they tend to be very sensitive to chemicals. It may be just fine for them. A good tip, and worth a try for sure if your daphnia tank has hydra, as leaving the hydra in there will surely result in the demise of your daphnia. 👍
@@Aquarimax oh my bad I was thinking the hydra were in ur other tank not the daphnia tank. It may do something I'm not certain. I would assume hydra would harm daphnia or do they coexist?
Caity Stepleton Ah, I see. I don’t currently have any issues with hydra...I haven’t seen any for years, but since I have planted tanks, I don’t use water from those tanks in the slim chance that I could introduce a hydra. Hydra will feed on daphnia, and if left unchecked, will quickly wipe out a daphnia culture. 👍
Thanks for your videos on Daphnia. I've setup a 10 gallon and a couple mason jars as backup. The colonies are growing but my ammonia is reading from 1 to 2 ppm, nitrite around .5 ppm and nitrite and 10ppm for nitrate. I've been doing 25% water changes daily that helps but it goes right back up. Do you see this kind of readings with your daphnia tanks? I'm feeding 6-10 ml of spirulina mix that's 1/8 tsp spirulina to 1/4 cup water.
Awesome timing on this video, I just got my hands on some Daphnia Magna and some Daphnia Pulex a week ago. I've been feeding them yeast and am a little confused about the feeding amount. Based on what I was told I should be using around 1/8th of a teaspoon of yeast for my 2 10 gallon tanks, then feed when the water clears up. But...my water has been getting clear within 4-6 hrs of feeding, rather than 2-3 days as I expected. I only have a small amount of daphnia in each tank so I thought the tanks would stay cloudy longer. My setup is pretty much the same as yours, 10 gallon tanks with a sponge filter and a little java moss. I also have ramshorn and pond snails in my tanks.
Maybe I should switch to using flour as you do, seems easier to me. Also need to get some spirulina powder!
Glad to know it is helpful! The sponge filter may actually be filtering some of the yeast out of the water. I would recommend keeping the sponge filter in the tank for surface area but detaching it from the airline. Just let airline bubble. And I agree...the flour mixture is easier! It works without spirulina, just with somewhat lower production.
Do you mean just regular organic Spirulina powder you can get at the Vitamin store? Thanks!
whitedragon1337 where do I get daphnia?
Excellent video! Regards form Ecuador.
Paulo Preis Thank you so much! I appreciate it, Paulo!
Hi , where do I get the dsphnia eggs from ? Sorry complete noob as regards dsphnia , many thanks ☺️
Jay Jay You can often find them on eBay or Aquabid.com 👍
Is it equal amounts of all the flour and spiraling powder? Thank you
That is usually how I do it 👍🏼
Very helpful video, much thanks
FirstTimeAquatics you are very welcome!
Do the daphnia stick to the zucchini? (Even though they don’t eat it).
Not in my experience...👍🏽
Hey. I'm wanting to try culturing daphnia and was wondering if algae wafers would work if grinded up into a fine powder?
Something I have been doing for a while now, based on a tip from Adam B. I add Aqueon algae rounds whole. The scuds I keep with the daphnia munch on the algae rounds and release a cloud of fine particles into the water, which the daphnia eat. It works great!
Wonderful, helpful informative video. I'd like to start culturing daphnia for my schoutedeni puffers. Can I buy a starter culture from you? I live in the midwest USA
Aub_K Thank you, and you cerrtainly can! Please contact me for details here: www.aquarimax.com/contact/
Hi! This has been the most helpful vids for indoor Daphnia culture I've come across.
I'm growing D. magna for a local pet store, feeding with a combo of micronized rice bran and Chlorella algae. I had trouble with excessive bacteria in my 15 gal. tubs, probably from overfeeding, according to what you've stated about 10ml feedings. I'm trying to get to 10K+ per tub, which is much denser than what appears in your tank. I've also put homemade sponge filters in the tanks, which seem to collect much of the suspended rice bran. either way, it seems to disappear in a few hours. would I still get max production with such a light feed, and once a day? I've heard everywhere how easy it is to overfeed, so I thought I'd ask. PS: Your culture videos are generous and very helpful.
Fritz Wilhelm Hi! I’m very glad that you find my my videos helpful! I suspect your sponge filters are removing a lot of the food from the water column before the daphnia can get to it, but then that food is still available in the filter to feed the bacteria. You might try removing a sponge filter from one of the tubs and seeing how production and bacterial growth differ. High-density cultures like you describe are easier with Moina than with daphnia. You might be able to manage it, but such cultures are more prone to crashes. You will probably need to feed a little more heavily than I do, but I would build up gradually. The nice thing is that you can have experimental and control tubs to tweak variables. Best of luck to you, let me know how it goes, or if I can offer any more help! 😊👍
Thank you sir! My magnas will undoubtedly thank you as well. You are right about the moina. They don't call them mo' mo' moina for nothing! I'll keep in touch and tell you what succeeds.
Can i give them hikari first bites? It has spirulina in it. But it also has copper sulfate...will that be a problem?
Kathleen Monsegue I would steer clear of it if possible...that copper worries me a bit.
daphnia is great for small fish. my betta fish love them
how do you get that PVC water changer to turn on, On command? Do you have a video?
Ryin88 It just works by siphon: once it is primed (by filling it completely with water and putting in into the tank without getting any air in it), I just have to turn the knob to turn it on. It works well, but the downside is that the water inside the tubing goes anoxic, so it smells like sulfur for a few seconds when I turn it on. For that reason, I don’t really use it anymore.
love your channel!
Mr.vivarium Thank you, it means a lot!
WHERE CAN I GET A DAPHNIA TO START MY CULTURE
You can often buy them online, depending on where you live. I sell them in the USA, where are you located?
Hi, and thanks so much for all the awesome info and advice that you share. I was wondering if you've heard of anyone using powdered nutritional yeast, or Bacter AE in a food mix?
I've used bacter ae with spiraling and bee pollen. It was in my outdoor tubs though, so they had other sources of food. It definitely didn't harm the culture though, and it works well for shrimp so I assume the daphnia like it too
I am currently trying my hand at daphnia. So far I am doing well, and your video showed me the error in my ways; I was trying to do too much. I have a question I hope you can answer. I have some type of worm-ish things in the daphnia tank. I see them on the glass, and I see some free swimming that look like little S's. I believe that both the glass ones and free swimming ones are the same. Any idea what they are, or if they are harmful to either my fish or daphnia? If they are harmful, do I have to start over, or do you have tips you could share on getting rid of them safely in my daphnia tank?
Trishelle DeCoite they could be, and probably are, detritus worms. If so, they are harmless to fish and daphnia, and are in fact an additional live food for your fish. 👍
Yea a new video it's amazing as always keep up the amazing work👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Dinosaurs terroir World 😁👍😁👍😁👍 thank you, Dinosaurs terroir World!
Aquarimax did you try to culture triops before?????????
Dinosaurs terroir World I have raised Triops many times. I am planning in making a video about it soon. 👍
Aquarimax I tried to culture them before but unfortunately they all dead maybe because I over feed them or maybe it was to cold I don't know the reason but now I switched up to triops to isopods(pillbugs) and there amazing creatures I just love them they look cool and very easy to keep and there just amazing 😉
Aquarimax so the next livestream is tomorrow?????? You said on Monday
Great video and very informative! Subbed☺
Mimi's Aquatic Addiction Thank you! 😊👍
What temperature do you keep them at? Do you sell these same daphinia and scuds? If so, where?
Jake Grammer I keep them at room temperature, the ambient temperature varying between 65 and 78 F in the room, depending on season. They aren’t picky that way. I do sell them. You can go to my ‘about’ page on RUclips, and email me from there, and I will send a price list. 👍
Great info 👍🏼
Glad it was helpful!
They’re so cute
m77yice killem I think so too 😊👍
What is the light settings for your indoor culture? 24/7 or only certain hours?
Hi max bro... my daphnia tub is under and corner having white fluzzy thing like white fungus it's good or not what it does???
It may related to the yeast. I have avoided feeding mine yeast.
Have you tried raising freshwater fairy shrimps? You can get eggs just like brine shrimps.
You can raise them with the daphnia I suppose.
professorM I have raised a few different species of fairy shrimp, I really enjoy them! In this video I show the first week or two of my beavertail fairy shrimp project: ruclips.net/video/kVksiIuxr0c/видео.html
and here is one of my really old videos of some redtail fairy shrimp I raised: ruclips.net/video/u2ZutzFiaBs/видео.html (you can see Daphnia, clam shrimp, and seed shrimp in the aquarium as well.)
cool. Did they reproduce in the tank? Or do they produce eggs and need a dormant stage?
There's a species from Thailand I might look at.
professorM The two features in the videos need a dormant egg stage, as far as I know. I kept another species (found locally) that did not need a dormant stage...nauplii just appeared in the tank. I have looked into that Thai species a bit, but I haven’t tried it yet.
is there anything youd add to the food powder mix, also is the ratio of ingredients pretty much 1 parts of each?
Linden Edwards The food powered mix is pretty flexible, but yes 1:1:1 ratio works well. Spirulina, rice flour, and pea or garbanzo flour work really well with no other ingredients 😊👍
How to you clean the stuff on the bottom of the aquarium and how often please
I use a siphon to remove it about once a week
I have some daphnia in a jar that I got out of a lake (I wasn’t really expecting to get anything I was just wondering what I could get out of the water, I mainly was just looking to get some free plants) and I was wondering how long I should have the culture going before feeding it to the fish. I have four minnows so I don’t need a ton of food for them I just want to improve their diet a bit. Can they live in the jar without the huge setup? Also what temperature should I keep it at because I have a spare heater laying around I just don’t know what to set it at.
Spivey C I made a video specifically about culturing daphnia in a jar: ruclips.net/video/b0ZlwtjJu9c/видео.html. It should give you the information you need. 😊👍Room temperature will be fine, no need for a heater.
would they be good for small rainbowfish like the Pseudomugil or ember tetras?
Jese's Aquarium They would definitely eat the small young daphnia. The adults of the strains of daphnia I raise would probably be a bit big.
@@Aquarimax thank you very much
I just set up a Daphnia tank in a window. How long should the water age? I used NovAqua to neutralize chloramine in the water.
Thanks for the informative video. Would you please share me if you have an experiance of feeding spirulina powder alone for Daphnia culture? I am struggling to grow using spirulina powder, but they die with in five days.
Hi would the spirulina powder alone work? Thanks
I use almond leaves in my betta tanks. Will this be a problem for daphnia if I use the 'old water' removed in water changes for daphnia cultures?
It depends on the mineral content of the water, and also if there are any hydra hiding out in your betta tanks. If your water has some natural mineral content it should work.
Hi i have a question regarding the Daphnia culture. In case i don't have any access to natural source of water what kind of water can I use for the proper growth of the culture ?
You can use aged aquarium water, as long as you can be sure it does not contain hydra.
Thank you for the response....can I use dechlorinated tap water for the culture?
@@malayaghosh2278 it depends on the daphnia and the water source. I use dechlorinated water for mine, and they do well, but with other strains of daphnia or different water, results could vary.
If say were freshwater fish in that tank would that flour harm or even benefit the fish in any way?
Fish in with the daphnia? Well, the daphnia wouldn’t last very long, but the water quality in a daphnia I tank isn’t necessarily the best suited to fish.
@@Aquarimax Couldnt they coexist in a tank somehow? Say it was one small fish that could never eat alll of the daphnia so they could keep reproducing and the fish would still be able to eat some daphnias everyday no worries... OR I could culture the daphnia in a semi closed area inside the tank like a cave of sorts that the fish couldnt enter but the dapnia could get out from time to time... how about it? :)
I have a brand new 10 gallon tank that's been here for about 3 years. Do I have to let it go through the whole nitrogen cycle or can the Daphnia be added in 2 weeks or so?
Michael Wells Good question! I would suggest cycling the tank completely, or just adding a very small amount of daphnia at first, and feed lightly. With such a low bioload it won't be too much of an issue, and the beneficial bacteria population will increase as the daphnia do. Alternatively, if you are sure you don't have any hydra in your aquariums, you could drop in some nice funky filter media from an established tank and you'd be good to go immediately.
If you keep them aoutdors , do they die in the winter?
cactofilo In the climate i live in, when I keep them outside, they die off in late October/ early November, and then the eggs hatch around March. 😊👍
If i get my tanks and fish i would like to try this. The only thing is i was thinking of using a bucket .
Stephen Bamber A bucket works well...I raise them outdoors in buckets quite often. 👍
Can you just use solely spirulina powder alone? I heard some Vietnamese people mix it with rice water. The white water you get from rinsing rice.
You could, but I have found better results with a mix.
Aquarimax Pets Would you say green water is best?
VB 23 It’s a great natural daphnia food, but for me spirulina and mixed flours is convenient and easy.
Aquarimax Pets I have plenty of green water from my uncle huge ponds. So I’ll use that then I’ll turn to spirulina if I run out.
VB 23 that should work...just make sure not to collect hydra along with the green water. 👍
Thanks for the informative video! I am about to buy Daphnia for my Advanced higher Biology project, and i was just wondering if i could just feed them wheat flour alone? Or even just yeast. Also how long would they live for if i were to feed them this diet? Thanks
UnderTM plain wheat flour will work indefinitely, but they will likely produce less. I have used yeast, but tend to avoid it...seems to cause crashes.
Hey, Please Respond ❗
At what temperature do you keep the tank? No heater, warm room temperature❓
Thanks 👍
Rico Kowalski Just room temps, no heater. The room temp varies from 65 in the winter to 80 in the summer.
My catfish never talks pls help
Gaijilla himself You just may have an introverted catfish. Try enrolling your catfish in a public speaking class. 🤣👍
I’m thinking of culturing them for my newts do you think a sponge filter would work for aeration
A sponge filter might work, but a fresh one might also take too much of their food out of the water.
wow！i love your video 😍😍do we need to syphon out the dead daphnia that sank to the bottom of tank ？？？
Seow Weisin Thank you! Yes, it is good to siphon some of the detritus out of the tank at each water change. I don’t suggest removing it all at once, though.
Hi I just watched this entire video and I am now inspired to start a daphnia culture, but I'd like to know whether freeze-dried daphnia can be used to feed betta fry, because I can't seem to find any info on this on google. What is your opinion?
Nashorn Great question. Freeze-dried daphnia would tend to be too large until the daphnia fry had had some time to grow. For betta fry I used Infusoria and vinegar eels, then switched to baby brine shrimp and walterworms.
@@Aquarimax If thats the case, would it be advisable to feed live daphnia besides the choices you suggested to betta fry as their first feed? I'm thinking of breeding betta, but the last time I tried growing my betta fry I foolishly used store-bought fish food that was way too big for the betta fry to eat, resulting in the widespread destruction of the fry.
Cool! Really helped me. Thanks!
Ayana, Mio, & Chika Delighted to hear it! 😊👍