Daphnia aeration in 2 liter bottles?

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stanleyc

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I've recently started culturing daphnia again. I have 2 cultures in 2-liter soda bottles and feed them active yeast and spirulina powder. I've used the same setup and foods in the past and had good enough production for the most part. But feeding them yeast and spirulina, there's always a chance of fouling the water, which has cost me a couple times in the past.

I was wondering if aeration is worth doing in such small containers. I've tried an air pump/tubing setup, but it produces too strong a current in the 2-liter bottles. Is there a way to make this setup work? Is there something else that would work in such small containers? Or should I not bother with aeration and just be careful with feeding and maintenance?

Thanks
 
I've not found 2L pop bottles very good for daphnia, but even smaller flat rectangular 650ml plastic containers, only filled to 400ml, from the local take-away restaurant are very good at maintaining small back up cultures without aeration, and I've even kept a few daphnia in a petri dish stack.

The containers are a lot easier to pipette out or net a few daphnia than bottles which have to be decanted to get at the contents, or if you scissor off the top they become floppy and hard to handle.

Shallow seems to work very well without aeration, I presume diffusion works well with the wide surface area. You could stick with 2L pop bottles but only put 800ml in them and stack them sideways like wine.
 
I would recommend using larger containers, if possible. The problem of too strong aeration can be solved with an air control kit (little plastic splitters and valves). Put this search into google: "aquarium air tubing control kit".
 
Aeration normally kills daphnia. Banging them into each other and the walls of the container. This grinds away their shells. I would try to use 5-10 gallons tanks and feed green water. Culture green water from turtle tanks or grown in large soda bottles filled with rain water and liquid fertilizer set to grow on a sunny windowsill. If you don't want to use green water try crushed up goldfish flakes.
 
With the space I have available, I think I'll stick with the bottles for now. I will try to the tubing control kit.

Thanks for the advice both of you.
 
I use 2 l bottles, full up to about 5cm from the top, without aeration. But I use almost exclusivelly greenwater and tank water. When I do have to feed something else, I use only 2-3 drops per bottle, of bakers yeast, liquizell or a similar suspension I prepare.
 
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