Culturing daphnia outside

Stupot1610

Stupot1610

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I have very nearly been successful in culturing daphnia inside using spirulina powder and yeast however I always seem to end up over feeding or something just goes wrong! So now, considering its nearly March, I figure I can probably start culturing daphnia outside. I have acces to these conditions/supplies and I am wondering if this is suitabke for culturing:
; 6-10 degrees celcius day time temperature (gradually increasing)
; 4x3x3' pond/tank
; yeast and spirulina powder
; pet shop daphnia (pretty high quality - i order it for delivery to my home. I have no access to wild daphnia, all ponds in my area are full of sticklebacks!)

Thanks,
 
I used to collect mine from a slow part of thre Leven between Markinch and coaltown of Balgonie some years i collected from the pond between Leslie and Glenrothes not sure if its changed as i left Fife in 2006
 
Don't see why you shouldn't start now, my outdoor cultures usually start producing about this time (though I haven't checked them yet this year).

You don't need many Daphnia to start with- I started an indoor culture last year in an 18" tank with only 20 Daphnia, and it was teeming with them after a month.

I have started cultures with pet shop Daphnia before, but the last time I did this they died off over the winter, while the wild ones survived.
 
I have a question regarding culturing daphnia outside. Currently I have a big tub outside that I filled with a small amount of algae and daphnia that I got from a little ditch at my mom's house. It was swarming with daphnia at the time so I only took one small container with me and figured I could go back and get more when needed. I wasnt thinking about it drying up, which it did the very next week. I fill my tub when it gets low with pond water or when it rains it gets more water. There's a healthy amount of algae in it and lots of daphnia now which have been keeping my 30 some larvae happily fed. My question is what do you guys do about the mosquito larvae?? I know newts love them but mine are too small for that now, plus they are kept in open shallow containers and I don't want uneaten ones to turn to mosquitos in my house. Even the parents tank has a screen lid but the holes are probably big enough for them to fly out so I don't want to bring them inside. Just wondering if you guys had any insight for me on this. I keep my tub in my front yard so I can access it easily and I don't want to have a bunch of mosquitos hanging around there as my daughter and I like to spend alot of time out there.
 
Increasing aeration is a great suggestion, but I know for me I did not want a power cord out all summer. So I just got some cheese cloth and a large rubber band to hold it in place. This has worked very well for me - I've been culturing daphnia in a 5 gallon bucket and harvest pretty heavily every few days. And the cheese cloth breathes just fine and allows algae to continue growing to feed the daphnia.

I am rubbish at culturing daphnia inside, but have been very pleased with my covered 5 gallon bucket on the patio system!

HJ
 
Does anyone know what the tiny worms are that are living in my outdoor daphnia tub? Some are very very tiny, and white? Some are bigger and bright red.at they just mosquito larvae?? I wondered if I should try letting the larvae eat them also. A few larvae have all four legs now, most of them have the front two, and quite a few are sprouting the back 2. I also wondered if anyone had a good way to feed the daphnia to the larvae without getting all that nasty green gunk that's at the bottom. I tried using a brine shrimp net and rinsing them but that seemed to kill some of the daphnia. I use a turkey baster to get them from the tub. I add more pond water in a shallow container and try my hardest to only get daphnia and no green gunk but it's very very time consuming.
 
Crystalann0219 said:
Does anyone know what the tiny worms are that are living in my outdoor daphnia tub? Some are very very tiny, and white? Some are bigger and bright red.at they just mosquito larvae?? I wondered if I should try letting the larvae eat them also. A few larvae have all four legs now, most of them have the front two, and quite a few are sprouting the back 2. I also wondered if anyone had a good way to feed the daphnia to the larvae without getting all that nasty green gunk that's at the bottom. I tried using a brine shrimp net and rinsing them but that seemed to kill some of the daphnia. I use a turkey baster to get them from the tub. I add more pond water in a shallow container and try my hardest to only get daphnia and no green gunk but it's very very time consuming.
Click to expand...

I don't have a good answer for most of your questions but the red worm looking dealies are most likely bloodworms and if they are they should be safe to feed to your larvae.
 
Stupot1610 said:
I have very nearly been successful in culturing daphnia inside using spirulina powder and yeast however I always seem to end up over feeding or something just goes wrong! So now, considering its nearly March, I figure I can probably start culturing daphnia outside. I have acces to these conditions/supplies and I am wondering if this is suitabke for culturing:
; 6-10 degrees celcius day time temperature (gradually increasing)
; 4x3x3' pond/tank
; yeast and spirulina powder
; pet shop daphnia (pretty high quality - i order it for delivery to my home. I have no access to wild daphnia, all ponds in my area are full of sticklebacks!)

Thanks,
Click to expand...

I culture daphnia outside, and have found sludgemunkey's .doc very helpful: http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...eral-discussion/82640-lazy-mass-cultures.html I don't follow all his recommendations but use the same general approach. My buckets, tubs, & wading pool in the ground freeze in the winter (buckets sometimes break). The daphnia hatch out in the spring and produce most of the summer in northern Minnesota.
 
Thank you for sharing that document. Very close to what i have been doing, but I got alot of helpful info from it. I definetly take a lazy approach, haha. I also looked them up and figured out i did have bloodworms in there, i hadn't seem them before because i usually harvest during the daytime. I didnt expect to accidentally have live bloodworms!
 
Would you share how your 5g bucket setup is done? I'd like to get a culture going and it wells be great if i can do it outside.
jewett said:
Increasing aeration is a great suggestion, but I know for me I did not want a power cord out all summer. So I just got some cheese cloth and a large rubber band to hold it in place. This has worked very well for me - I've been culturing daphnia in a 5 gallon bucket and harvest pretty heavily every few days. And the cheese cloth breathes just fine and allows algae to continue growing to feed the daphnia.

I am rubbish at culturing daphnia inside, but have been very pleased with my covered 5 gallon bucket on the patio system!

HJ
Click to expand...
 
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