Freshwater phytoplankton

[Kingkong]

Hi bro's,

Anyone experience in breeding freshwater phytoplankton?
On the www i can only find the salt variations.

Thanks

[stormhawk]

This is basically referring to green water or algae in suspension. You should try and culture some Euglena. They would make excellent food if you have those freshwater sponges.

[Kingkong]

Thanks a lot stormhawk!!

I will definately read on the euglena!

Im trying to find proper food for the caridina woltereckae abd ive read about diatoms.
Im not i really need the sponges though, no one can keep the sponges alive for more then weeks.

But again thanks for your help.

Any further help or reading is appreciated

[stormhawk]

You can probably try with very finely powdered Chlorella powder as well. Diatoms are brown algae I think. Those rocks with reddish-brown algae might be the food source that these C. woltereckae need to survive.

A chat with a marine LFS owner gave me a simple idea on how to keep those sponges alive, be it freshwater or marine. Since they are basically filter feeders, giving them green water or a fine suspension of planktonic food may be the key to getting them to thrive. A commercially available planktonic food based on algal matter would be Mosura Shrimpton. I have no idea if the woltereckae will take this food though, but it's worth a try.

In the lakes, each species must be inhabiting a specific niche in the community, feeding on different types of foods and having different levels of aggression, as shown by C. dennerli when defending their hiding spots against other shrimps. Therefore, I think C. woltereckae has a specific food that is required in its daily diet, just to thrive and breed.

A study of the gut content in specimen C. woltereckae, will give you a basic idea of what they feed on in the wild, but I can't find a study on this matter. Perhaps you might want to contact the authors who described this shrimp? They must have done a diet analysis for this particular species.

[Trichopsis]

I'm wondering if "green water" will be sufficient to sustain a small colony of small freshwater clams (Corbicula), or if I'll have to supplement them with droplets of Liquifry (or start a batch of "infusoria" as well). Had a batch of clams die within a week after they were bought, I suspect that the aquarium was simply too clean and they all starved.

[Draka]

Hi Pseudogobiopsis, green water should be cultured separately from them and fed to them. I have 5 clams that survived for almost a year already. For mine, they only eat the detritus from the shrimp and snails.

[stormhawk]

Pseudogobiopsis, that works. You can run multiple bottles of green water with a single airpump and feed them with a dropper or something if they are really small.

[Trichopsis]

Ooh, I see. My original plan was to let a small container of aquarium water sit in the sun (of course, without breeding mosquitoes!)

Is this Wikihow guide a recommended way to kickstart a green water culture?
http://www.wikihow.com/Culture-Greenwater

[stormhawk]

The easiest way to kick start is to get a starter culture of green water. Goldfish keepers should have these in abundance, or you can ask for a starter from GC at a price of course. I saw a huge bag of green water under the shopkeeper's desk and he will be more than happy to help. I have it too but if you're at NUS, going to GC is much faster.

In an indoor setting you can use a simple fluorescent light set from dawn till dusk to give the algae the light they need to photosynthesize. I squeeze in a little liquid fertiliser every now and then to keep it going with my LED light set. In the past I had snails in the green water tub but with the presence of snails, other tiny animals like Cyclops will appear. If you want to keep it pure just rely on fert and light to keep it going. One single 1ft tub or 2 ft tub should be sufficient for your needs, or an array of 4-5 1.5L PET bottles. Aeration is not necessary but it helps to keep the algae from settling on the bottom.

Most of the green water cultures we have are basically Euglena or something similar, along with a whole host of other algae like Chlorella.

[Trichopsis]

Thanks a lot stormhawk!

[stormhawk]

Good luck with the green water culture. Chances are, you'll be swamped with it in no time.

[Draka]

Haha by the way if you are in NUS, starter cultures can be obtained from any of the ponds at science park II behind PGP. Of course, not sure how clean it is. On that note...

Fastest way to GC from NUS: from back gate of PGP take bus 183 and alight opposite the mosque ^^

[stormhawk]

If you take from the pond there is bound to be other stuff in it. Running the gunk through a fine sock or filter should be good. Probably going to isolate only the green water and some flagellates. One of the killie guys worked at the Bird Park and he fed his fry with green water from the flamingo pond. Worked like a charm.

[Draka]

Haha GC it is... xD RAID ALL THE LIVE CULTURES!