xxianxx
Well-known member
I have been asked by a couple of people to write a thread on my care techniques for raising daphnia and moina ( Daphnia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ), all who have successfully raised axolotls with baby brine shrimp (bbs) but would like to avoid the large amount of water changes this entails and the potential for high mortality rates if they mess up. Daphnia ( moina is just a smaller bug than daphnia and is cultured the same)is an excellent food source for axolotls, it is easy to culture but is prone to a boom and bust cycle but with a bit of care and planning you can get a consistant supply. This year I have raised 1800 axolotls and 800 newts/frogs exclusively on daphnia. i have used it in previous years but could never produce a consistant supply and had to resort to baby brine shrimp. I am closing my daphnia tanks down for the winter now and am back on BBS :-(
Whether you are planning on hatching ten eggs or a couple hundred the technique is the same, the difference is purely in scale. Firstly you will need some containers for cultivation ,tanks/tubs/buckets are all fine. I use anything from 20 liter tubs to five foot tanks. If your looking to raise twenty eggs you will need a minimum of four twenty liter tubs, three for daphnia and one for their foodsource. Daphnia are filter feeders, they strip the water column of algae and bacteria, if you wish to grow them they need to be fed, the first method is
Green water - this is basically algae loaded water, it is very easy to culture. Take some dirty water from one of your tanks and place in the tub, the nitrates in the water are plant food, baby bio is also usefull if you have no dirty tanks, add an algae starter culture or just leave it outside and the algae will colanise it, adding algae will just speed the process. Over a short period of time the water will become dark green, its now ready to use. Just pour some into the other tubs which are to culture the daphnia, add more tank water to them, refill the algae culture, add your daphnia starter culture to the tubs and your ready to start. Do not let the daphnia colanise the green water tub, if they do restart it. As the daphnia population increases they strip the water of food making it clear, if they are not fed the population will crash, just keep adding greenwater to the cultures as required. Be aware that too much algae in the water "chokes" the daphnia, if its too thick they die.
Pellets - Daphnia don't eat pellets, they eat the bacteria which feeds off them. Just throw a load of pellets into your culturing tub, let it rot down, when the waters cloudy (bacterial bloom) its ready to use. I quite often add pellets to both my greenwater and daphnia cultures. I don't generally use these two feeding methods seperatly, I use them in conjunction.
Alternate foods- Milk, not sure if the daphnia feed of it or the bacterial boom it causes, either way its convenient. I only use it on my larger cultures only , 4/5 ft tanks , as overfeeding fouls the water causing a daphnia crash. A 5ft tank will have five or six milk bottle caps of milk every other day max.
-Activated yeast, get some yeast add it to warm water, add some sugar, allow to stand in the warm for a few hours, add to your dap culture, just a few drops in a 20 liter tub, like milk it can foul a culture.
Once your daphnia population is growing its ready to harvest, a fine meshed net is ideal, just scoop them up. Don't let your daphnia population get too big, even if they have enough food they can crash. Harvest them regularly to avoid this, a population which crashes naturally seems to take longer to reestablish than one which you reduce yourself.
Daphnia can be cultured alongside other bugs, some will just turn up, others can be introduced. Ones whom self seed are Cyclops, bloodworm, mosquito larvae introduced ones are snails, blackworm and water slaters ( really usefull bugs BTW Water slaters ~ Freshwater Habitats TrustFreshwater Habitats Trust ) all of which are edible to axolotls.
You will get a few undesirables in your culture who pose a risk to your hatchlings and/or the daphnia. Hydra, kill daphnia and a potential threat to hatchlings when they are in large numbers, greater pond snails eat them which is why its worth having a few in your tubs. Predatory bugs, damsel fly and dragon fly nymphs in particular are a pain, when harvesting daphnia place them in a clear tub and remove any you see, I feed them to phibs big enough to consider them a snack. Mosquito larvae, im in the UK so no communicable diseases for me
, be aware if your in a country which has.
You can also culture plants in larger daphnia cultures, my preferred plant for axolotls is elodea. Once my axolotl eggs have hatched i dump the elodea with dud or empty egg cases on it in a daphnia culture, the bacterial bloom is food for daphnia. If you have water slaters in your culture they will clean the plants up within a couple of weeks and there ready to put back in the tanks. The water slaters will also have a population explosion.
Once you have a sufficient supply of daphnia they are ready to use. A daphnia set up is very different to a BBS setup. The link is to my thread on using BBS http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...sing-baby-axolotls-baby-brine-shrimp-bbs.html
Daphnia can be used in a low maintenance set up , low water changes and plants. Do not use high volume water changes with daphnia, they do not survive long in freshly dechlorinated water, they generally die within 48 hours, do small water changes a couple times a week, spot clean dead daphnia with a turkey baster. The plants will provide shade and cover for the axolotls and help remove nitrates. If you raise axolotls with a low stocking density, in a heavily planted tank you can get away with minimal water changes, daphnia do well in these setups, even to the extent that the population reproduces.
Raising daphnia is easy but requires practice, crashing a few cultures will give you the experience to judge how and how not to do it. If you want to try raising axolotls on them make sure you have alternate food sources in reserve. Don't rely on shop bought daphnia, shops are at the mercy of their suppliers and do run out occasionally. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Whether you are planning on hatching ten eggs or a couple hundred the technique is the same, the difference is purely in scale. Firstly you will need some containers for cultivation ,tanks/tubs/buckets are all fine. I use anything from 20 liter tubs to five foot tanks. If your looking to raise twenty eggs you will need a minimum of four twenty liter tubs, three for daphnia and one for their foodsource. Daphnia are filter feeders, they strip the water column of algae and bacteria, if you wish to grow them they need to be fed, the first method is
Green water - this is basically algae loaded water, it is very easy to culture. Take some dirty water from one of your tanks and place in the tub, the nitrates in the water are plant food, baby bio is also usefull if you have no dirty tanks, add an algae starter culture or just leave it outside and the algae will colanise it, adding algae will just speed the process. Over a short period of time the water will become dark green, its now ready to use. Just pour some into the other tubs which are to culture the daphnia, add more tank water to them, refill the algae culture, add your daphnia starter culture to the tubs and your ready to start. Do not let the daphnia colanise the green water tub, if they do restart it. As the daphnia population increases they strip the water of food making it clear, if they are not fed the population will crash, just keep adding greenwater to the cultures as required. Be aware that too much algae in the water "chokes" the daphnia, if its too thick they die.
Pellets - Daphnia don't eat pellets, they eat the bacteria which feeds off them. Just throw a load of pellets into your culturing tub, let it rot down, when the waters cloudy (bacterial bloom) its ready to use. I quite often add pellets to both my greenwater and daphnia cultures. I don't generally use these two feeding methods seperatly, I use them in conjunction.
Alternate foods- Milk, not sure if the daphnia feed of it or the bacterial boom it causes, either way its convenient. I only use it on my larger cultures only , 4/5 ft tanks , as overfeeding fouls the water causing a daphnia crash. A 5ft tank will have five or six milk bottle caps of milk every other day max.
-Activated yeast, get some yeast add it to warm water, add some sugar, allow to stand in the warm for a few hours, add to your dap culture, just a few drops in a 20 liter tub, like milk it can foul a culture.
Once your daphnia population is growing its ready to harvest, a fine meshed net is ideal, just scoop them up. Don't let your daphnia population get too big, even if they have enough food they can crash. Harvest them regularly to avoid this, a population which crashes naturally seems to take longer to reestablish than one which you reduce yourself.
Daphnia can be cultured alongside other bugs, some will just turn up, others can be introduced. Ones whom self seed are Cyclops, bloodworm, mosquito larvae introduced ones are snails, blackworm and water slaters ( really usefull bugs BTW Water slaters ~ Freshwater Habitats TrustFreshwater Habitats Trust ) all of which are edible to axolotls.
You will get a few undesirables in your culture who pose a risk to your hatchlings and/or the daphnia. Hydra, kill daphnia and a potential threat to hatchlings when they are in large numbers, greater pond snails eat them which is why its worth having a few in your tubs. Predatory bugs, damsel fly and dragon fly nymphs in particular are a pain, when harvesting daphnia place them in a clear tub and remove any you see, I feed them to phibs big enough to consider them a snack. Mosquito larvae, im in the UK so no communicable diseases for me
, be aware if your in a country which has.You can also culture plants in larger daphnia cultures, my preferred plant for axolotls is elodea. Once my axolotl eggs have hatched i dump the elodea with dud or empty egg cases on it in a daphnia culture, the bacterial bloom is food for daphnia. If you have water slaters in your culture they will clean the plants up within a couple of weeks and there ready to put back in the tanks. The water slaters will also have a population explosion.
Once you have a sufficient supply of daphnia they are ready to use. A daphnia set up is very different to a BBS setup. The link is to my thread on using BBS http://www.caudata.org/forum/f46-be...sing-baby-axolotls-baby-brine-shrimp-bbs.html
Daphnia can be used in a low maintenance set up , low water changes and plants. Do not use high volume water changes with daphnia, they do not survive long in freshly dechlorinated water, they generally die within 48 hours, do small water changes a couple times a week, spot clean dead daphnia with a turkey baster. The plants will provide shade and cover for the axolotls and help remove nitrates. If you raise axolotls with a low stocking density, in a heavily planted tank you can get away with minimal water changes, daphnia do well in these setups, even to the extent that the population reproduces.
Raising daphnia is easy but requires practice, crashing a few cultures will give you the experience to judge how and how not to do it. If you want to try raising axolotls on them make sure you have alternate food sources in reserve. Don't rely on shop bought daphnia, shops are at the mercy of their suppliers and do run out occasionally. If you have any questions feel free to ask.