# Starting Daphnia tank



## terrorbear (Oct 29, 2003)

I just ordered a starter culture for Daphnia Magna and am planning on keeping them in a 6 gallon
eclipse tank as a food source and to use them to help fight green water in my other tank.
Right now I dont have a heater and the water temp is around 64deg F at night time which should
be tolerable. There are many conflicting sources on the internet regarding the best 
temperatures for them to reproduce in large numbers and I was wondering if anyone 
can help me on which tempratures would yield the highest population growth
Thanks


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## bpl1000 (Dec 14, 2003)

Hi, I was wondering where you got your daphnia culture. I'm looking for a reliable source for live foods (daphnia).


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## terrorbear (Oct 29, 2003)

I couldnt find any at the local LFS so I brought them online. Try ebay or aquabid. I bought mine from Dallas Discus
They had fast shipping and almost all of them were alive on arrival. I would recomend them if you dont mind
shipping costs.


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## Fyre (Nov 17, 2003)

Does anyone have pointers on keeping daphnia?


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## jart (Jan 17, 2003)

http://www.thekrib.com/Food/daphnia.html


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## Raul-7 (Oct 17, 2003)

All I know that GW is there main food source...


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## tropicalbill (Dec 25, 2003)

I had a culture of monia last summer. I put them in a 10 that was pea soup,the water was clear in a week and they crashed. You will need an unlimited supply of green water to maintain them.


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## True Blue (Dec 19, 2006)

Is this Bill who I might have met in a chatty? Please respond if it is true blue awaits you!


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## Lupin (Nov 21, 2006)

True Blue said:


> Is this Bill who I might have met in a chatty? Please respond if it is true blue awaits you!


But the last time he posted was 3 years ago.:icon_conf


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## radiocognition (Dec 17, 2006)

if anyone has been able to personally keep a stable - self sufficient population going, I would be interested in hearing how. There are alot of conflicting sources out there


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## JenThePlantGeek (Mar 27, 2006)

There is a guy in our local club that has been fighting with raising daphnia for years and has finally perfected it. He's tried every way out there and several species. I was witness to his fish room recently, where he had several 50 gallon tubs just FULL of the little bugs. I think it involves yeast and babyfood but don't quote me on that... I'll see him on January 4th and get a summary of how he does it and I'll get back to you.


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## nana (Oct 27, 2006)

You can feed them a yeast solution. What I do is to grind some yeast and a spirulina tablet with a mortar and pestle into a fine powder. Then when I need to feed them I mix a pinch of this mixture with a little luke warm(I want to get the spirulina into my fish - if you want to keep them just for clearing green water you can feed them yeast exclusively). With time you will gain experience as to how much to feed. Overfeed and you will crash the culture. If in doubt underfeed. Also, the culture water needs to be renewed, otherwise eventually it will crash.

Also, I would divide that culture into multiple separate cultures. That way if one crashed you will still have the others to continue with.


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## hooha (Mar 14, 2004)

several cultures is a great suggestion. You will be surprised how quickly a culture will crash.

I haven't tried yeast as food but that is an interesting suggestion - much easier than growing out green water.

If you have fish in your tank with green water, you might want to build a daphnia trap (see the krib site for suggestions). I was lazy so I just put them in a brine shrimp net with the open end out of the water. 

Something that I found interesting is their temperature tolerance. I had a 20 gallon rubbermaid outside as my daphnia culture over the summer. I've left it out this winter with several freeze-thaw cycles already. When I check it out there are still a large number of daphnia swimming in there! I doubt they are breeding very much right now but they sure can tolerate extremes.


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## Gill (Mar 20, 2005)

I have a Tank just for Daphnia. 
I dont do anything to it. 
I just tend to chuck plants in it when i do a rescape and leave them to it. it sits in the conservatory and gets natural light. 
Dont feed them anything and they have been going strong since July. I dont see many big Daphnia just Tons of small daphnia.


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## demitri (May 28, 2008)

*endless supply*

i set up a tank about 5 years ago and never do anything to it and get 100's on new live daphnia everyday. Just need to set up right and have lots of light.
see site below, thats how i got started.

http://www.daphnia.webplatez.com


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## SearunSimpson (Jun 5, 2007)

I bought a starter culture from a guy out here. A week prior to it, I got a big empty drum and and filled it with all my water from my water changes, then topped up the rest with fresh clean water (dechlored first) and then acclimated them. They've taken care of themselves. They are outside (moved inside during the winter) and all I feed them is some greenwater from our half-assed half barrel pond thing about once a week or so. With Daphnia, a greater surface area is better than depth when it comes to storing them, as it allows for greater gas exchange. You have to collect it often enough to keep the population steady, or else they will crash. They are very oxygen sensitive. You can feed them paprika, spirulina, and yeast. 
I had a culture for over a year, until I've recently discovered Hydra in it. Now I've got to start all over again.


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

can you post some pics of your set up?


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## pick1e (Jun 12, 2008)

Anybody growing daphnia indoors, away from natural light?

I would really like a year-round supply so I'm trying to grow them in a basement and not having a lot of luck. They are living and reproducing, but definitely not in numbers enough to make it worthwhile.

I've tried feeding them a little yeast and green water, and even though my tank looks crystal-clear (I don't THINK I'm overfeeding?) I still have about 1ppm amonia which I don't think is good...

Any idears?


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## mojave (Oct 2, 2007)

I don't think ammonia is the problem. I feed mine with dried crushed bird poop, and yeast. Maybe you can put some light into it.


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