Keep daphnia alive.

[Lasher]

I've cultured daphnia many many times, in everything ranging from 2 litre cola bottles to inflatable pools.
Since moving house a couple of years ago I have been completley unable to keep the little buggers alive for more than three days.
I've always kept them in aged tap water, fed on a mixture of activated yeast soloution and green water. I've tried various containers the largest being 36 litres, the smallest 3. Air, no air, daily water changess no water changes and so on. I have tried absolutley everything, and honestly cant figure what the problem is.

Any ideas? I'm going to have larvae in a couple of weeks and working full time can only pick up live food on the weekends - they need to survive at least a week.

Help!

 

[Kaysie]

I've always used leftover tank water for my daphnia. I have terrible luck with tapwater as well, and found that if I use water from the adult axolotl tank, they are very happy.

 

[TristanH]

Invest in a water butt. That way you always have a good supply of clean water for your Daphnia and your newts.

Meantime, try getting hold of some water from a local river or pond.

Tristan

 

[Lasher]

Invest in a water butt. That way you always have a good supply of clean water for your Daphnia and your newts.

Meantime, try getting hold of some water from a local river or pond.

Tristan

I could do that, but I'd have to invest in a property with a garden first. I'm willing to go to almost any lengths but 150k+ is a little too much!

Theres no local river or pond. If there were I'd be weary of using it around here. Fishing in this town tends to yeild an interesting aray of shoes, plastic bags, shopping trolleys and turds. In any case I'm technicaly on a peninsula so theres only salt water around.

Kaysie, I've had marginal success using old tank water before unfortunatley its not an option here as my fish tank is currently full of meds and copper sulphate in a last ditch attempt to deal with algae problems. I have used some water from paludariums mixed in but I dont do regular water changes on either of them and even if I did theres no way they'd yeild the volume needed.

 

[Yahilles]

I'm culturing daphnia in faunarium with tadpoles, there's a rather low water level, some water plants, air pump and i'm putting "spirulina wafers" into the tank one time a week. Daphnias were brought to the faunarium one time and are still breeding.

Maybe you should also try with daphnias from other place.

 

[Steven Scott]

i found this site super helpful.
www.daphnia.webplatez.com

I've cultured daphnia many many times, in everything ranging from 2 litre cola bottles to inflatable pools.
Since moving house a couple of years ago I have been completley unable to keep the little buggers alive for more than three days.
I've always kept them in aged tap water, fed on a mixture of activated yeast soloution and green water. I've tried various containers the largest being 36 litres, the smallest 3. Air, no air, daily water changess no water changes and so on. I have tried absolutley everything, and honestly cant figure what the problem is.

Any ideas? I'm going to have larvae in a couple of weeks and working full time can only pick up live food on the weekends - they need to survive at least a week.

Help!

 

[Jennewt]

Aging the tap water may not be getting rid of the chlorine; it depends on the starting concentration of chlorine and the temperature where the water sits. I have done some experiments aging water in 20-liter buckets and testing it with a chlorine test kit. At a temperature below ~16C(?) (I'd have to look it up exactly, but it was fairly cool), there was still a significant amount of chlorine after 2 weeks, and the amount that dissipated overnight was negligible. I keep intending to write up my experiments and post them, but haven't gotten to it yet.

My suggestion would be to filter the water for the daphnia through a drinking-water filter. And my other suggestion is that there is something else about your tap water that is unsuitable. For example, is your water very soft? Daphnia need some minerals in the water to make their shells.

 

[Daniel]

One other thing I had some problems with: Is this a newly (well...couple of years ago) built house you live in? And are there any copper water pipes?
I had a problem with water when I moved my home and there were new water pipes made of copper. After some time, these pipes grow some kind of patina, hindering the copper to dissolve into the water. Until this happens, you should release any water that has aged in the pipes before using it. Alternatively you could use a water conditioner to bind the metal ions (metal ions can not be "aged").