daphnia culture

[matchu77]

Hi All, can anyone advise how to culture daphnia? I have young axolotls. Buying daphnia is costing a fortune, and it is not the best quality from shops.
Any advice?
Cheers
Matt

 

[Jennewt]

First, read through the old threads in this area of the forum, and read this website:
http://www.caudata.org/daphnia/
Then come back with specific questions. It's not reasonable to ask someone to write you a whole caresheet.

 

[Kane]

Hi, I have young axoltls as well that I feed on daphnia. I have worked out a way to culture them in a successful way without any cost, with a little research. If you want to know how to culture them successfully. I'll be happy to share my knowledge. Send back if you need help.

 

[morg]

large tubs of water out in your garden, or back yard, add some daphnia, leave for a while, then start taking daphnia from the tubs to use as food, alternating the tubs so that you give each culture a bit of time to recover before removing daphnia again.
no feeding needed for the cultures, no water changes nessesary.

 

[Coastal Groovin]

To have strong producing Daphnia cultures you will need to feed them green water. They feed on the single cell green algae. Or some powered fish flake food will work also. Read about it on the thread jennewt has posted for you.

 

[Kane]

large tubs of water out in your garden, or back yard, add some daphnia, leave for a while, then start taking daphnia from the tubs to use as food, alternating the tubs so that you give each culture a bit of time to recover before removing daphnia again.
no feeding needed for the cultures, no water changes nessesary.

Yes you can do it like that but it doesn't get a lot of daphnia.

 

[Otterwoman]

Maybe you can try a different food, like minced blackworms. I use them on very small larvae, it requires a bit of chopping, but you can get them pretty small.

 

[Kane]

No they wouldn't eat the worms.

 

[JM29]

Hello.

To get a stable Daphnia culture : a tub, water (of course) and dead leaves, and not too much light.
There may be more productive methods, but the stability is good with dead leaves.