Using Daphnia as food

**torque6** · 22nd Mar 2009, 01:05

I was at ADA SG on Thurs when they started feeding all their fishes in the tanks. I didn't know what they were at first until i observed the apisto closely. The pair was eating some white spots floating in the water.

I went over to the Boraras Brigittae tank and was impressed that the tank had alot of big tummy well fed, crimson red males.

I ask the uncle at the shop and he said they were boon, aka Daphnia.

I've been keeping boraras B. sp for over a year and they've never looked well fed. Of course if I were to overfed, i could get the same effect but will end up having algae as well.

Came across this article which describes how to keep and maintain cultures for daphnia. http://www.caudata.org/daphnia/

However, I'm not sure about the following. Would appreciate some help.

1- Performing water changes? How do you do this when you are dealing with fries size organism swimming in the tank. Wouldn't siphoning up water during wc suck up these guys as well? Is foam filters more effective in keeping the water clean in this case?

2- When you feed your fishes, do you net the daphina up and throw them into the main tank without cleaning? Any concerns for "polluting" the water in the main tank, thus causing algaes?

3- I understand daphnia can live up to 30-40 days in ideal condition, so technically, i could have daphnia hiding in the vegetation "spawning" in my tank, thus providing a constant supply of food provided they don't suck up the filters. In any case, if the earlier is true, they would live in my OHF for over a month? Yes ?

4- The author prefers normal pellets to baker yeast and other forms of food for the daphnia, is this more effective?

thanks.

**Newbiebetta** · 29th Mar 2009, 18:25

Boon stinks like hell, very much similiar to tubifex.
I suggest u to get tubifex worms. They are more widely available,cheap, fishes love them and they are easier to clean as u don't need the fine net to clean them like boon.And, where's ADA SG located??

**Mez** · 6th Apr 2009, 21:51

I reccomend not to use tubifex for very smal fishes. Unless you are going to seperate the worms, some of them are very long and some fish struggle.

**trece** · 7th Apr 2009, 20:27

im pretty new with this but i hope anything here can help..

try this - http://www.thekrib.com/Food/daphnia.html
its quite abit to read but it probably helps when it comes to daphnia and the aquarium.

1) i do 2 things to prevent this problem, the first is if i dont need to do vacuuming, i'll just cut a small piece of filter sponge out and tie it over the siphon intake, and try to put it in a corner or nearer the surface. either that or another thing you could do is to use the normal rubber air tube for airpumps etc. suction isnt very strong and you can easily pinch the tube to stop the flow if you are getting close to something you shouldnt be sucking up. just keep watching.

2) havent really had too much experience with daphnia feeding so cant say much. however i dont think pollution would be so much of a problem. ive seen people throw them in when going away for a weekend or so.

3) if you want a constant supply of daphnia for food, i reckon you should put them in the fridge and cultivate them. in low temps they live for very long.

4) the daphnia eat bacteria that grow from manure and whatever green algae can survive their verocious appetites, so normal pellets may not work so well unless its producing algae blooms or it can produce similar bacteria. you could try to use them for a small container of them and let me know how they do