Daphnia: A Boon To Fish Health & Well-Being

[tetrakid]

I occasionally treat my Tetra fish to snacks of Daphia when I can get them.

One cannot fail to notice their obvious gusto as they enthusiastically pecked them up.

And there can be no doubt that daphnia contributes to their overall health too.

But the problem is it's rather hard to find daphnia in the shops here.

Does anyone have the same problem?

[Interestor]

well, if got transport, pasir ris farmway 2 is a good place to have supply of daphnia.

CHeers..

[Lavish]

Hello,

I drop by AquaStar Trading often and have always seen packets of daphnia in stock.

They are located at block 934 Yishun Central 1, hope this helps.

[qwerty84]

For those living in Yishun y934 n y618 will have daphnia on most days. Better to call and check before heading down though

[tetrakid]

I believe they only sell those tiny variety (Moina). By Daphnia, I mean those big red Daphnia.

Sorry Mod, for starting this thread on Daphnia, as there's already one titled "Culturing Daphnia". This thread is meant to discover the goodness of Daphnia and where to buy good Daphnia for our dear pets.

For live food, I prefer Daphnia to Adult Brine Shrimp, for example. As beeding one's own Daphnia is a very involved matter which most fish-keepers will find little time for anyway, knowing where to buy them on a regular basis is important.

Will be good to know the places we can get big Daphnias, including from Malaysia.

[Trichopsis]

I saw a few bags of Daphnia at C328. I think they're Daphnia; they're marked "freshwater" (in contrast with the unmarked bags with brine shrimps), and when I asked the auntie, she verified that they were Daphnia.

[Draka]

Hey tetra, I was wondering, since you mentioned when you can get them, does this mean you actually got them before? Where and how?
Er and I got one of those bags today from c328, but only thing I found inside that was larger than general moina were these copepods that were slightly larger than moina...

[Trichopsis]

I hope that there's still a bag for me to grab later in the morning! Water fleas in general are so hard to come by these days...

[Draka]

Er, saturday and sundays closed at c328...

[Trichopsis]

C328 is closed on weekends?!

But I was there on a Saturday evening 3 weeks ago...

[stormhawk]

C328 is only closed on Sundays. They have supply of the Moina once a week on Thursdays I believe. Only other LFS in the west that stocks these water fleas is Hong Yang at CCK Central.

[tetrakid]

I got those from 328 and also 618, but it's just the Daphnia's little cousins, not the red and giant 'big bad boons' I am looking for.
Those small boons are only best for feeding fish fry.

Hey tetra, I was wondering, since you mentioned when you can get them, does this mean you actually got them before? Where and how?
Er and I got one of those bags today from c328, but only thing I found inside that was larger than general moina were these copepods that were slightly larger than moina...

[Trichopsis]

Just a note that all the bags of water fleas at C328 are gone. I bought one of them in the late afternoon, and I saw someone else heading towards the cashier counter with the last bag.

The fishes love them, though they're really tiny (even smaller than adult brine shrimp), and I've added the bulk of a bag to a bottle of greenwater and hair algae, as an experiment to see if I can sustain a mixed water flea/phytoplankton culture.

[stormhawk]

A tank or tub with a larger surface area coupled with gentle aeration and filtration with a sponge filter will be a better choice for your experiment. They are voracious critters and the bottle of green water will go clear pretty soon.

Keep in alkaline water, because they die quickly in acidic waters.

[Draka]

Thanks stormhawk, I didn't know about (didn't bother heh) the acidic waters bit

[RonWill]

I trust that everybody here knows the difference between Daphnia, Moina and newly hatched BBS...

[Trichopsis]

I probably can't set up the filter and aeration (lack of space), but I'll see if I can transfer some of the culture to a plastic takeaway box, since it does have larger surface area for gaseous exchange. I'll have to keep both containers sealed though, since my neighbourhood is a perennial dengue hotspot, and I think I did see a small mosquito larva* wriggling away in the bottle...

*Too tiny to be sure of the ID; it was wriggling about in the water close to the surface. It could have just been a phantom midge, but I'm not taking any chances.

Here's what I have at the moment:

Attachment 29052

The clumps of filamentous algae and greenwater were collected from a concrete 'pond' in NUS Faculty of Science that houses some fishes along the corridor.

My plan is to have these containers sitting on the cabinet outside my door, where my mum puts her potted plants as they get plenty of sunshine. In this way, the filamentous algae (and phytoplankton) should help provide oxygen. I'm considering adding a few drops of Liquifry to stimulate bacterial growth, or toss in some baker's yeast to supplement the diet of the Moina. It's definitely not a self-contained ecosystem, but I'm trying to tinker around and see what's the best way to raise Moina/greenwater/both with minimal effort on my part.

[RonWill]

Good... good... another cultivator in the making!! Update us on your progress, even if things don't turn out as hoped.

[tetrakid]

It's also very good that we have Uncle Ronnie here who undoubtedly can offer a word or two (maybe more) of advice about boon cultivation.
His wealth of experience in this area is well-earned through his interest, dedication and meticulousness, as we can see in his past posts in
the "Daphnia Culturing" thread.

Thanks, Uncle Ronnnie.

Good... good... another cultivator in the making!! Update us on your progress, even if things don't turn out as hoped.

[Draka]

Haha uncle ronnie, you might be hoping too much judging from the above posts...