amount of sun for growing daphnia etc

[Otterwoman]

I'm going to experiment in my yard for the summer growing cultures in buckets (daphnia, paramecia, etc). I have my choice of direct/full sunlight most of the day, in the morning hours only, or mostly shade with dappled sun. What would be the best choice?

[Kerry1968]

As far as I know daphnia tolerate quite a range of temperatures, but I would think a wild fluctuation wouldn't be good. I would think the position with morning sun would be best, as the sun wouldn't be too hot and therefore not raise the temp too high. I believe the daphnia need some sunlight so I think the mostly shade would be out.

I just found this on the site......

Temperature - Daphnia have a wide tolerance to temperature. The optimum temperature for Daphnia magna is 18-22oC (64-72F). D. pulex seems to do well at well at almost any temperature above 10oC. Moina withstand extremes even more, resisting daily variations of 5-31oC (41-88 F); their optimum being 24-31oC (75-88 F). The higher temperature tolerance of Moina make this species a better choice where temperatures may rise above the comfort levels for D. magna at certain times of the year.

I don't know if any of that helps!

[Otterwoman]

Hmmmm....yes, thanks, I think I'll put them in the spot with the morning sun.

[Jacob Bidinger]

You can grow them without sun. If you throw a handful of compost in some water the resulting bacteria make a great food for Daphnia. You can also use yeast to culture them, but using too much will foul the water and kill your Daphnia culture.

[rick]

I have created an infusoria in the water for the daphnia using lettuce. If you put lettuce in the water for a week or so it will make a good broth for the daphnia.

[Otterwoman]

Oh, thank you! I thought light was more of a factor. Anyway, I'm also trying to grow some in my basement. That book on aquaculture inspired me to try culturing again (I'd tried about 1 1/2 years ago for a few months and didn't get good results, and finally gave up). I set up a bunch of buckets outside with some algae and other things, and I set up some jars in my basement. I sent away for some cultures as well.

The lettuce experiment is one of the things that ended up in a horrible foul smell, but like I said, I'm going to give it all another go. Other things just didn't grow, things I tried to feed with an occasional cat food pellet, fish food, algae tabs, vegetable baby food, and yeast. That was in my basement, and maybe is why I thought taht enough light was what I was missing down there.

[Jacob Bidinger]

Daphnia grow in most of my tanks because I don't normally use filters and very rarely empty them completely. I think having live plants in the tank helps, but isn't totally necessary. The Daphnia in my tanks simply feed on the bacteria that leech off of the newt feces (or so I've been lead to believe). Some people may think that it's gross, but we fertilize vegetables with manure I usually keep a 30-40 gallon tank or two free of newts just to have a decent sized Daphnia culture for the winter. Every time I do water changes on the adult newt tanks I throw the old water into the Daphnia tank, and usually it works. The main problem I have with Daphnia is that there doesn't seem to be an exact way to do it, sometimes they blossom and sometimes they all die. In the warmer months I culture them outside in stock tanks and rubbermaid tubs. To start I don't add any food, the leaves that fall into the water seem to be enough for the starter culture to feed on for the first few weeks to a month. After that, when the population is larger, I add random things like grass clippings, old newt water, twigs, leaves, and occasionally a bit of trout chow. I never do water changes on the outdoor tubs because the rain seems to do a good enough job with that. Indoors it's important to change at least a small portion of the water every week to two. A killifish breeder that I know uses spirulina flakes that she turns to powder in a food processor. She then add enough to give the water a light green color and the tank is lightly aerated.

[rick]

The first time I tried it without aeration and I failed miserably. When I added a airstone to gently aerate and turn the water there was success. Also I have found keeping the stock medium density instead of max density helped. I feed the daphnia green water when available(usually summer time I set a few gallons outsie to bloom) if not the lettuce infusoria. Don't forget to get inside and clean out the waste/dead daphnia at least every other day....I love the daphnia they drive my fish wild...:)

[Kurt]

I just collect them out of my pool. Every year they bloom big time. I usually don't bother collecting any. I did once when I had some salamander larva. I haven't looked to see if there are any this year. There is a big *** bullfrog out there though.

[Johnny O. Farnen]

Depends on the daphnia in my opinion.
Magna cultures always seem to crash out doors for me, they like it cool. Moina and D. pulex do very well in both full and partial sun for me, however my outdoor cultures are plastic 35 gallon laundry bins from the Wally World.

Our water is so hard here, it is impossible for me to get a good green water culture going, the brown diatoms always take over. I feed a combination of yeast, and powdered spirulina algae I got bulk at the Health Food Store. Indoors I use nothing but yeast.