Which LFS still selling live daphnia aka boon??

[tetrakid]

=D Thank Q. I think I need 1 more week to harvest them. =( Most are still so puny and the population not dense enough.
Update:
I have decommissioned my 8 weeks old Moina Jar culture and transferred 10-20 Moina into another Jar. The Jar kinda screwed up recently as it got invaded by seed shrimp babies or ostracod. I consider seed shrimp as pest due to most small fish don't eat them and they are kinda big and unsightly. I have no idea how those ostracod got into my culture. I suspected the hay infusion feed but it's only that Jar got invaded. =/ Maybe it's tap water or something. Also, the yield rate seem to slow down after reaching its peak.
I going to decommission my mini tank Moina culture too and maintain a pure Moina culture. =D I'm satisfy with the conclusion of the two cultures.

Don't be disheartened if crashes occur. You have gained valuable experience thus far and can ride on that experience for future improvement.
Ted.

[Bern C]

Don't be disheartened if crashes occur. You have gained valuable experience thus far and can ride on that experience for future improvement.
Ted.

Yeah... I have learned a lot from my failures and others too. From this 2 cultures, I learned that in order to get high yield feeding is inevitable. Their population is limited by the amount of the food. I never change water for both culture but top up, they seem fine. But after I fed them daily, the yield rate seem to slow down after 3 weeks which I believe the water started to foul. The bioload is too great for the BB to handle. XD Still trying to find the best way to culture them.

I think I will be keeping only a culture of Moina now. XD Will be focusing more on Daphnia. @_@ Now I am facing copepod problem. I spotted 2 copepods in my mini tank. Tried to siphon them out but they are too fast. @_@ The only way I can think of is siphon out all the Daphnia instead.


Anyone have any idea where can I get this Hobby Artemia Sieve Combination or something like this??

[tetrakid]

Yeah... I have learned a lot from my failures and others too. From this 2 cultures, I learned that in order to get high yield feeding is inevitable. Their population is limited by the amount of the food. I never change water for both culture but top up, they seem fine. But after I fed them daily, the yield rate seem to slow down after 3 weeks which I believe the water started to foul. The bioload is too great for the BB to handle. XD Still trying to find the best way to culture them.....

If you have a bigger culture in a bigger tank, it's better to add an air bubbler with a special air stone. The air stone must not be too fine as to produce tiny bubbles that will be harmful to the daphnia. You need to look around for an air stone which is suitable. It needs to be an air stone and not just slow bubbling from the naked air tubing.

As for fouling of the water, it can be reduced by incorporating a separate slow-flow or trickle biological filter which will handle the ammonia produced in the tank. But there are also other things of importance besides these I mentioned.

[Bern C]

If you have a bigger culture in a bigger tank, it's better to add an air bubbler with a special air stone. The air stone must not be too fine as to produce tiny bubbles that will be harmful to the daphnia. You need to look around for an air stone which is suitable. It needs to be an air stone and not just slow bubbling from the naked air tubing.

As for fouling of the water, it can be reduced by incorporating a separate slow-flow or trickle biological filter which will handle the ammonia produced in the tank. But there are also other things of importance besides these I mentioned.

Yeah.. I used to aerate my Moina culture but stopped. So far both are doing fine without aerate + filter as I using biological way to keep the water clean. Of course with filter + aeration will be the best but I trying out the most natural and low cost way.

BTW Shifu UA's Dero culture guide is up. http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...-Worms-Culture

[tetrakid]

Yeah.. I used to aerate my Moina culture but stopped. So far both are doing fine without aerate + filter as I using biological way to keep the water clean. Of course with filter + aeration will be the best but I trying out the most natural and low cost way.

The most natural way is in shallow ponds (oxygenation) and decaying animal faeces (bacteria).
Without good aeration, a big culture in a container is sure to be oxygen starved.
Not only the daphnia will starved of oxygen nut also all organisms within the container.
So aeration is a must. But won't cost much as it is just a tiny pump with a course air stone running slow.

[Urban Aquaria]

Anyone have any idea where can I get this Hobby Artemia Sieve Combination or something like this??

You can try the zooplankton sieve sets that come with different sized micron sieves in separate caps... looks something like these:





Photos from eBay.

I've ordered a set from online sellers before, here is a eBay search link to some sellers:

http://www.ebay.com.sg/sch/i.html?_o...sieve&_sacat=0

[Bern C]

The most natural way is in shallow ponds (oxygenation) and decaying animal faeces (bacteria).
Without good aeration, a big culture in a container is sure to be oxygen starved.
Not only the daphnia will starved of oxygen nut also all organisms within the container.
So aeration is a must. But won't cost much as it is just a tiny pump with a course air stone running slow.

XD I using natural aeration, algae and hornwort seem to do the work. But the problem with algae pearling is that the bubble is quite fine. I saw a few daphnia tail got caught by the bubble. It didn't kill them, but they will swim awkwardly and try to free itself from the bubble which eventually did after a few attempts.
I also did tried to closing the lid of the Jar but not airtight, my Moina no change at all and didn't produce extra hemoglobin. =( I kinda disappointed also as I want them to turn red so they will have higher protein content.

Yeah~ I absolutely agree with you but I trying to make my culture as simple as possible at the same time trying to make them hardier. XD I just started another culture using 32cm x 19cm non-airtight container with cover. I see how will they do with a little air exchange.
Next, I thinking of modify the container and add some a solar fan. Basically the fan will be inside the covered container and will be activated when there's direct sunlight shining on the container. XD kinda weird idea.

You can try the zooplankton sieve sets that come with different sized micron sieves in separate caps... looks something like these:

I've ordered a set from online sellers before, here is a eBay search link to some sellers:

http://www.ebay.com.sg/sch/i.html?_o...sieve&_sacat=0

Many many thanks. =D

[Bern C]

Update: New Moina culture - Day 4 (22/07/15)




I am kinda surprise on Moina hardiness as I have reduce the amount of air exchange but they are not producing extra Hemoglobin. More need to be done or... XD maybe airtight next.

As for Daphnia, I can see some of my Daphnia in the non-airtight container turning slightly red but they are still growing.

[Bern C]

Update: 2g tank

My 2g tank has failed me. It got invaded by seed shrimps!! It's not as prolific, currently having like only 20-30 adults and around 50 babies. I am facing my same old yeast problem again. I have no idea why whenever I feed them yeast, my Moina and Daphnia will get itself stuck on the wall and unable to escape. I have no idea if it's yeast that caused the films on the wall. =( Still exploring the fed for Daphnia.



@Shifu Tetrakid,
Do you want some of my Daphnia adult from my 2g tank? Currently I can only provide u like 20 adults. For babies, can provide you more if you don't mind it might contaminated by babies seed shrimp & copepod. I planning to reset my 2gallon tank. I will be sieving out the adults from the babies & other crustacean then do it again when the babies grow bigger. I currently have 2 mini tank and will be using the one free from contamination to restart my 2g tank. XD Hopefully my 30x19cm container are not been contaminated too though I have being taking extra precaution.

[tetrakid]

Update: 2g tank

...I am facing my same old yeast problem again. I have no idea why whenever I feed them yeast, my Moina and Daphnia will get itself stuck on the wall and unable to escape. I have no idea if it's yeast that caused the films on the wall...

@Shifu Tetrakid,
Do you want some of my Daphnia adult from my 2g tank? Currently I can only provide u like 20 adults. For babies, can provide you more if you don't mind it might contaminated by babies seed shrimp & copepod. I planning to reset my 2gallon tank. I will be sieving out the adults from the babies & other crustacean then do it again when the babies grow bigger. I currently have 2 mini tank and will be using the one free from contamination to restart my 2g tank. XD Hopefully my 30x19cm container are not been contaminated too though I have being taking extra precaution.

不敢当 - bù găndāng ... Thank you Bern, you flatter me, I am just a greenhorn in aquatics, lol...

Not right now, as I am overloaded with other tasks, maybe later on. But be sure, I am giving you my full moral support on your Daphnia experimenting, etc.
Looking forward to the day when your culture is dense and thriving.

[Bern C]

不敢当 - bù găndāng ... Thank you Bern, you flatter me, I am just a greenhorn in aquatics, lol...

Not right now, as I am overloaded with other tasks, maybe later on. But be sure, I am giving you my full moral support on your Daphnia experimenting, etc.
Looking forward to the day when your culture is dense and thriving.

Those who teaches = my teacher. XD You are being humble.
Oh... Then I will quarantine them and use it on other experiment. =D I think it's also better for me to maintain a cleaner culture before giving out.

[tetrakid]

Those who teaches = my teacher. XD You are being humble.
Oh... Then I will quarantine them and use it on other experiment. =D I think it's also better for me to maintain a cleaner culture before giving out.

It's important to have a few cultures going, Bern. Crashes are inevitable, so always have backups to enable you to continue your experimentation.
I think oxygenation and regulated feeding are the most important factors for Daphnia.

To master Daphnia culturing, you need to concentrate on Daphnia, and forget about keeping fish for the time being.
This is because there are many sensitive variables, so it is more demanding than fish-keeping or Dero worm culturing.
If you succeed in maintaining and repeating a huge Daphnia culture, that will be a big and valuable achievement for you.

[Bern C]

It's important to have a few cultures going, Bern. Crashes are inevitable, so always have backups to enable you to continue your experimentation.
I think oxygenation and regulated feeding are the most important factors for Daphnia.

To master Daphnia culturing, you need to concentrate on Daphnia, and forget about keeping fish for the time being.
This is because there are many sensitive variables, so it is more demanding than fish-keeping or Dero worm culturing.
If you succeed in maintaining and repeating a huge Daphnia culture, that will be a big and valuable achievement for you.

Yeah, you got the point. It depends on what kind of methods, some won't crash easily or can sustain for very very long but the yield rate might not be as high. Some with high yield rate but crash fast.

Now my problem isn't Daphnia not producing but the adults + some youth are getting itself stuck on the wall and died. At first I thought they were molting but later realized it shouldn't take like 1hr. I believe it's the yeast that caused some kind of film building up on the wall. Maybe CO2 from the yeast increases the growth rate of some kind of algae or fungus.

Anyway I have decomm my 2gallon tank. Drying that tank now and will be starting new culture tmr. I will make the setup very simple this time and experiment on high yield method. @_@ And now I have like 1 more extra babies culture which is a tedious work to separate them from the contamination.

[tetrakid]

@Bern C

You are on the right track, Bern. High yield is the way to go.

Keep going till you find the solution to the 'sticky' problem. I don't know the reason for that but I have no doubt the answer can be found somewhere.

Hope one day I will be able to pat your shoulder and say to you, "You are can".
I have faith in you. You rock!

[Bern C]

@Bern C

You are on the right track, Bern. High yield is the way to go.

Keep going till you find the solution to the 'sticky' problem. I don't know the reason for that but I have no doubt the answer can be found somewhere.

Hope one day I will be able to pat your shoulder and say to you, "You are can".
I have faith in you. You rock!

Thank Shifu Ted~

@_@ Now I am exploring fast and cost effective way to culture green water. XD Like many things need to do. I will try to find more info on sticky problem but if can't solve I think the only solution is either use glass tank or fully depends on green water.

I checked out on my mini tank culture. It's free from contamination and doing well. Has a mixture of adults and youngs. Can start my 2g tank 2day. ^_^

[stormhawk]

Be very careful with your Moina cultures, due to our local weather they tend to crash frequently. Many will contain pest species like Cyclops and very tiny worms. This is also the reason why I don't culture them anymore, because buying them is a lot cheaper than culturing them. Much easier to culture Grindalworms and such compared to Moina or Daphnia. In the past, some of the local killie keepers, had tried their hand at culturing Daphnia magna, along with Moina and other live foods. Even in cooler settings they crash way too often and produce insufficient numbers to be worth the effort, whether it was Daphnia or Moina.

To culture green water on a bigger scale you will need to set up a small box with a light source 24/7. A set of LED lights will function perfectly for this. There are videos on Youtube that will show you how to set it up. The "sticky" problem you have is the accumulation of a biofilm, which mostly contains bacteria. This biofilm can and will trap both young and adult Moina. To keep the sides healthy you might have to rely on 1 or 2 Ramshorn snails. Their poop is great for the Moina anyway.

As for those Hobby brand sieves, they are not available in Singapore. The best sieve I have came from a dusty Artemia hatching kit from Sera that I found at C328. Right micron size to handle even the smallest Moina or Artemia.

[tetrakid]

Thank Shifu Ted~
@_@ Now I am exploring fast and cost effective way to culture green water. XD Like many things need to do. I will try to find more info on sticky problem but if can't solve I think the only solution is either use glass tank or fully depends on green water. ....

Usually it's not easy to cultivate green water indoors.
Previously, I had a 2ft fish tank which was placed at a bright window which receives good light daily.
The tank water had turned all green. So, it is a good idea to place your green water tank with some fish in it either at a window or outdoors.
Try overfeeding the fish daily to increase the nutrients for the algae, but be careful not to foul the water too much.
You are cultivating algae, so the aesthetics of fish is not a consideration. Anyway, fish can be happy in thick green water too.
Green water is healthy for fish. Small feeder goldfish are ideal for cultivating green water.

[Bern C]

Usually it's not easy to cultivate green water indoors.
Previously, I had a 2ft fish tank which was placed at a bright window which receives good light daily.
The tank water had turned all green. So, it is a good idea to place your green water tank with some fish in it either at a window or outdoors.
Try overfeeding the fish daily to increase the nutrients for the algae, but be careful not to foul the water too much.
You are cultivating algae, so the aesthetics of fish is not a consideration. Anyway, fish can be happy in thick green water too.
Green water is healthy for fish. Small feeder goldfish are ideal for cultivating green water.

XD I heard Goldfish like green water a lot. @_@ Actually, my problem is the fert. but using gold fish like kinda cruel @_@ I don't have another tank and space for goldfish too. XD Maybe you can be my green water supplier.. Hahaha actually you should have taken my pulex adult and culture them in your green water tank.

Be very careful with your Moina cultures, due to our local weather they tend to crash frequently. Many will contain pest species like Cyclops and very tiny worms. This is also the reason why I don't culture them anymore, because buying them is a lot cheaper than culturing them. Much easier to culture Grindalworms and such compared to Moina or Daphnia. In the past, some of the local killie keepers, had tried their hand at culturing Daphnia magna, along with Moina and other live foods. Even in cooler settings they crash way too often and produce insufficient numbers to be worth the effort, whether it was Daphnia or Moina.

To culture green water on a bigger scale you will need to set up a small box with a light source 24/7. A set of LED lights will function perfectly for this. There are videos on Youtube that will show you how to set it up. The "sticky" problem you have is the accumulation of a biofilm, which mostly contains bacteria. This biofilm can and will trap both young and adult Moina. To keep the sides healthy you might have to rely on 1 or 2 Ramshorn snails. Their poop is great for the Moina anyway.

As for those Hobby brand sieves, they are not available in Singapore. The best sieve I have came from a dusty Artemia hatching kit from Sera that I found at C328. Right micron size to handle even the smallest Moina or Artemia.

Many thanks to Daphnia & Moina pioneer~ ^_^ Enjoy reading your old threads and posts.

Yeah... I suspected my Moina I got from the LFS is contaminated. It's really very hard to solve the copepod issue even I reset my culture, I still find copepod weeks later my Moina culture. I think I need to go to the extend of sterilize my equipment @_@?

Regarding about crashing. I have been wanted to ask one question.. How long do you guy usually able to keep the culture running before it crash?? Be it low or high yield. I would like to collect as much data as possible.

Regarding about the temperature, I have been keeping them at the window and exposed to late afternoon and evening lights. It seem like 26-29 is quite ok for pulex and Moina. I haven't go into the temperature vs yield rate yet. I will look into it. =D I hope able to get more info on the parameter from all the culturer.

Oh... =X I think I fed my nerite too much that they stop eating the biofilm....

XD Actually currently I am using kitchen sieve. For now I just wanna sieve out the adult from the contamination cos my cultures got contaminated.

Regarding about the green water, any fertilizer to recommend?? I just bought all purpose fert NPK 14-10-27 ytd then realize it has like 0.05 or lower Cu Fe Zn content which I am afraid it might harm the daphnia. Also I read that I need a NP 6:1 ratio but I can't find such fert. =( I heard higher P will encourage cyanobac growth. I am worry of the high K content too.

Many thanks for your info

[tetrakid]

@Bern C
Keeping goldfish in green water is not a bad thing.
Only humans like crystal clear aquarium water, and they assume that fish also like it.
Healthy green water is a good water state which is healthy for aquatic life.

[stormhawk]

Low yield usually crashes after a week. Never had a high yield one before but my last culture was in a plastic tub with some Tubifex worms and a few Ramshorn Snails. The worms were fed with commercially available fish food, usually a sinking wafer but never lasted long since plastic tubs are not exactly the best containers for culturing them. That attempt lasted roughly 2 weeks before I noticed all the remaining Moina were dead, along with the Ramshorns. Something about the plasticisers and lubricants used on the plastic during the molding process. If you have a used tub, that previously had fish and still has algae growing on the sides, that would be the perfect plastic container to culture these tiny morsels. For water changes go with distilled water like what the shrimpers do. A lot less headache and risk.

Last time we used to make the "food" with dried chicken poop lol... smells bad but the tiny fellas liked it. If your fertiliser has Copper then you will have issues with Moina. They are sensitive to metals in the water and our tap water is not exactly conducive for them. In the past I actually tried using this bottled Fiji brand water and it worked for awhile . I did not keep the Moina long enough to see whether it was to their requirements or not.

In your green water culture containers you should have a source of aeration going on, just to keep the sediment in suspension. Not too strong though. Green water itself is basically Euglena, which in itself is a zooplankton but with the capability of photosynthesis. Something useful here for you to read: http://www.aka.org/wako/~WebContent/...20euglena.html

The easiest is still using a single juvenile goldfish, like what tetrakid mentioned, in a decent sized tank with simple filtration. Place it close to a window or something, feed the goldfish every day and do not change the water too often. Once the nitrates start to build up the green water will come naturally or via an inoculation from your existing cultures. If you don't like goldfish use Tilapia. Same results.