I was at the garden store today and saw they had buckets with water lilies for sale - one bucket in particular caught my eye as it had a massive daphnia population. I bought the lily so I could get my hands on those excellent daphnia! I'm going to try culturing in a number of containers to try to avoid crashes.
@@pinoylakasradiostreaming5316 it was just the local garden store in my town, not a big box or chain store. They usually just have flowers, trees, herbs, ferns, veg, and very rarely some pond or aquatic plants depending on availability from their supplier.
Save your old jars, you can drill a hole in the top for an airline tube and pop them near a window (make sure not to accidentally cook them). I've taken to saving mayonnaise jars. You can even use a storage tote for a giant culture.
Thank you for this - I am in a neverending struggle with my daphnia culture. I first started culturing it indoors - and it crashed multiple times. It was aerated, warm, lighted, and fed yeast/spirulina. I eventually moved it outdoors over the summer where it was kept in a 5 gallon bucket. No aeration, no water changes, no food.. just lots of sunshine and whatever bugs fell in, and it did amazingly well. It's now winter again and I've brought it indoors, so I'm trying to learn more in the hope I can keep it alive this season! right now it's still in the five gallon bucket, aerated, lighted, and I've switched to flour and spirulina in the hopes the yeast was my problem. Cross your fingers for me!
Desert Bloom Bettas 🤞fingers crossed! The acclimation of the outdoor daphnia to indoors can be a little tricky...I recommend setting up one or two jar cultures as backup while you acclimate them to an indoor culture. 🤞
rainishell Thanks! The pipe works well, although it began to smell rather like hydrogen sulfide when I first began to drain the tank. I eventually removed it. This is strange, as I had it for quite a long time without this issue.
Great info!!! i’ve had problems with the yeast. Maybe I’m overfeeding, but im going to the health food store today to buy all those flours 5:06 that you mentioned.
I was cleaning my jar of plants and was looking for mosquito larvae and saw these little creatures.I knew these were daphnia so I was looking through UA-cam and found the perfect videos for daphnia culture.😊
Excellent video and thanks it was very helpful. I tried daphnia culture few time but always failed but now I will try again. I will use your advice and information. Blessings.
2 questions if you dont mind: 1- why not use a sponge filter? Isnt it important to keep water quality? It can do it as well as aerate? 2- what do we do with the debris which collects at the bottom? suck it out or leave it? When you do water changes do you suck from the bottom? 3- sunlight helps with algae growth so is good, but it also increases water temp. Is there a temperature which you would say is the maximum for a healthy culture?
Sponge filters, at least clean ones, tend to remove the particulate food the daphnia need. From the water column. Frequent partial water changes and algae growth help improve water quality, as well as healthy bacterial populations on the surface area in the tank. I periodically remove a portion of the debris from the bottom with water changes. 👍🏽
@@Aquarimax Thank you so much for the lightning fast response! I added one last question about temperature...asking is there a maximum temperature you think should be avoided? Thanks again for sharing, very informative and high quality information!
You’re welcome! I have kept these daphnia outside in temps over 100. F....of course, the water temp was probably in the 80s F. I would try to keep it Below 85.
Very good! I could just sit and watch the little life forms in your daphnia tank instead of the fish. I collect mine from the water buts in my allotment. Always plenty in Summer but no so good in our cold winter.
Graham Hall I am glad you have the same fascination with them that I do! 😊 When I culture mine outside, they last from March to October, but the winter is too cold here as well.
Thank you for in depth explanation on how to grow daphina, can I use tap water to start culture or is there specific requirement to type of water I need to have to start the culture?
It depends greatly on the strain of daphnia and on your tap water. I find the strain i work with does fine with my treated tap water, but many do not do well with tap water at all.
First I will still need a starter daphnia culture. Tropical storm Fred left a nice puddle and here it turned out to be packed with daphnia. I collected a few hundred in a net and here I am a few days later and there are over a thousand eazy. They grow fast to adults and the reproduction rate continues to the high side. I found this, what I'll call a "wild strain" to be hardy, strong reproducers, survives on just a little algae, rice flour, pea flour, wheat flour and although it's not necessary I add just a VERY small tough of active yeast. Since daphnia are born pregnant it takes no time to to start and have a self suficent culture of daphnia that will reproduce fast enough to feed all your fish and their fry. Pay attention to the video I've attached this comment to. I consider the author to be one of the for most experts in the field of raising not only daphnia cultures but many other types of cultures all good for your, fry through adult fish. I intend next add a culture of his daphnia to hopefully even make my "wild strain" that much stronger. That will have to seen for me to believe, they may already be a better choice that the "Wild strain" I found. Just leave a comment here and I'm sure he will be happy to sell you a starter culture as well.
Great video. I was trying to keep Daphnia in a 60 litre tank, plus a couple of 12 litre jars and some in jam jars as backups. I was mixing yeast and water and keeping it in the fridge but 3 times I found that all seem to crash at the same time after a few weeks. After watching this, I'm thinking it might be the yeast mixture if it was over a week old. So I'm going to give it another try using Spirulina and Flour mixture. I saw in another comment that you use Prime water conditioner which answered a question I had as I heard Daphnia didn't like declorinators. Thanks again and I've subscribed 👍
You’re welcome! I appreciate your subscribing! It could indeed be the yeast, which I now use, but I don’t store in solution, I mix it fresh every time. If it is mixed fresh and thoroughly, it can work, but it is easy to overfeed.
Great video! I’ve been working on trying to culture daphnia for my fish room. It’s been a struggle given my room restriction as well as it often being way too cold outside to do it on a larger scale. So I’m still trying the small-scale indoor setups
i miss the old days where private fish stoes had a constant supply of brine shrimp and i loved feeding my fish daphne, it would look like my tank was full of them, they called them water fleas and i think the fish loved the way they moved and brought out their natural hunting instinct
I do too. I remember going to the best fish/aquarium stores when I was a kid in the 60's and 70's, even when I lived in a very rural area. It's disappointing now, employees don't know anything about keeping fish, the fish are in horrible shape and there isn't much choice in species, not where I live. I can't find cardinals anywhere, I don't remember the last time I saw a discus tank. What happened to hatchet fish. Saltwater seems to be all the rage but even that is disappointing.
bill and ben If you got them indoors, just about anything that is comfortable for you is comfortable for them. My room temps vary between about 18 C in winter to 26 C in summer, and they are fine all year. 👍🏽
In this size of tank, I don’t produce a lot, sometimes it is quite a bit higher than this stock level, but the number replenishes itself pretty fast, so I can feed off and have the same number again within days. There are also lots of scuds in the tank, so I can harvest large numbers of those as well. I would like to set up an outdoor stock tank for larger numbers at some point.
Unfortunately I wound up in the hospital since I'll needed to obtain a stater culture of daphnia from you, will.need costs and instructions from you. The daphnia I found from tropical storm John is doing great. I had got maybe 100 a few days ago and now have 500+. Please advise
You want to get as large of a container as is feasible for these cultures. I think 50 gallons and up will result in a much more stable culture. Great video, love your channel.
I have a sealed jar of pond water with multiple snails, daphnia, seed shrimp, cyclops, duckweed and Canadian pondweed. What I noticed over time is that the seed shrimp inside evolved to be smaller, whilst the daphnia became larger. My cyclops also became very few in number. Quite interesting ecosystem. I also never feed them. Sun is all they need!
Hi. I have a question if you're not to busy and don't mind answering! Is a light a necessity, or can i just put it on a window? i live in cold Britain :) I just want to "grow" some in a glass jar.
Hi! A window could work...too much light can be worse than too little though. A north-facing window would be good, as long as the temps don’t get to the point where it is forming ice in the water, you should be ok.
Aaron Chaiklin Thank you! To start my cultures, I just got some Daphnia from another local aquarist, and later added the scuds . Hydra are not uncommon in planted aquaria as hitchhikers...they usually go unnoticed, in very small numbers, unless they encounter a plentiful food source, such as Daphnia, newly hatched brine shrimp, microworms, etc.
Appreciate your comment about the feeding of yeast. After having great success with pure spirulina powder, I switched to yeast and suffered a major crash in both my culture. I have restarted them with the survivors. I am now back on the spirulina powder feeding and will have to live with negative comments of family and friends on the distinct yellow tint to the water. Is this yellow discoloration, after the the initial green feeding, typical?
pondboss I haven't been using Spirulina as a sole food--only when mixed with the flours--and I haven't noticed a yellow tint...I wonder if that only occurs with pure spirulina? It might be worth trying the flour/spirulina mixture and seeing if makes a difference.
Can you explain why you keep the sponge in the aquarium? And how did you get it to sink? I'm really glad I found this video, because I was thinking of some kind of PVC siphon for my daphnia culture, but it is nice to see it in action!
Ivy Greene great questions! The sponge helps provide surface area for beneficial bacteria, as well as for the scuds That live with the Daphnia. Once the air bubbles were gone, it sank very easily. I squeezed it a few times underwater to help with that. The PVC siphon worked well, but started to smell after a while, every time I used it, so while it is functional, I decided to remove it.
hello I live in Colombia and try to raise daphnia outside, but there is a problem I live in a forest with many small tree frogs, and specially now in the rain season every day they lay hundreds of eggs in all the water they can find, I have thousands of tadpoles and they also get into the buckets with the daphnia and in the tanks with green water to feed the daphnias, I don't know if that might be a problem or do I have to keep the daphnias without tadpoles!? I see you have an air hose making bubbles is that necessary? thanks!
I would recommend using a fine screen to keep the frogs out if you notice they are causing issues. The air hose is not necessary, but it does tend to increase the yields of daphnia quite a bit
Simply Betta Great question! I have raised this strain in 1/2 gallon containers. I just give them a drop or two of food and a good stir once a day. A container like that works well if you just want to produce small quantities of daphnia. 👍
That is really cool, because everywhere I have been reading says smaller containers are really dangerous for daphnia colonies and they can crash really easily. Of course maybe not feeding yeast can really help minimize that risk? These must be those magnums. Do you sell?
Simply Betta The risk of crashing definitely increases in a smaller container, but I do think you're right...the flour mixture is less crash-prone a food than yeast. 👍 I do sell them, shoot me an email on my about page and I'll give you all the details. 😁👍
that is not an question''what do you think how small container to raise daphnia,they multiply fast in large groups and big tanks,so 100daphnia 10litres 1/3 10Gallon is 3 montsh 400daphnia,but e sure to harvest
@@Aquarimax I was going to pick up a culture, but will wait a few weeks, until things start improving. I currently have plenty of food for my betta, need to treat algae in my tank right now, I'll give you an update when I'm up and running. Thanks
Out of curiosity why not kill off the hydra? Fenbendazole (dog dewormer) is very aquarium safe even for shrimp and snails and itll knock out ur hydra in a few days time. Well.. maybe not that soon I caught mine early cuz I wanted to keep shrimp. Best of luck thanks so much for the info!
Caity Stepleton Yes, if you notice the hydra in time, that is a very effective way to control them. I am not entirely sure it is safe for daphnia, as they tend to be very sensitive to chemicals. It may be just fine for them. A good tip, and worth a try for sure if your daphnia tank has hydra, as leaving the hydra in there will surely result in the demise of your daphnia. 👍
@@Aquarimax oh my bad I was thinking the hydra were in ur other tank not the daphnia tank. It may do something I'm not certain. I would assume hydra would harm daphnia or do they coexist?
Caity Stepleton Ah, I see. I don’t currently have any issues with hydra...I haven’t seen any for years, but since I have planted tanks, I don’t use water from those tanks in the slim chance that I could introduce a hydra. Hydra will feed on daphnia, and if left unchecked, will quickly wipe out a daphnia culture. 👍
Awesome timing on this video, I just got my hands on some Daphnia Magna and some Daphnia Pulex a week ago. I've been feeding them yeast and am a little confused about the feeding amount. Based on what I was told I should be using around 1/8th of a teaspoon of yeast for my 2 10 gallon tanks, then feed when the water clears up. But...my water has been getting clear within 4-6 hrs of feeding, rather than 2-3 days as I expected. I only have a small amount of daphnia in each tank so I thought the tanks would stay cloudy longer. My setup is pretty much the same as yours, 10 gallon tanks with a sponge filter and a little java moss. I also have ramshorn and pond snails in my tanks. Maybe I should switch to using flour as you do, seems easier to me. Also need to get some spirulina powder!
Glad to know it is helpful! The sponge filter may actually be filtering some of the yeast out of the water. I would recommend keeping the sponge filter in the tank for surface area but detaching it from the airline. Just let airline bubble. And I agree...the flour mixture is easier! It works without spirulina, just with somewhat lower production.
I have a really hard time tolerating the noise that the air bubblers make, the machines are so loud! Is there any way to culture daphnia in a filtered tank versus an aerated tank, or will a filter always suck the daphnia up and kill them?
I wouldn’t recommend a filter, but I have good news for you: you can culture daphnia without aeration. The yields will tend to be lower, but still possible. Just stir the water water up whenever you feed.
Love your videos and I learn a lot from you. What is the yellow thing on the bottom of your tank? My tank have build up of green thing that look like their bio waste but I'm not sure if that is waste or not. I only use Spirulina to feed them and added about 10 snails and one pleco recently hoping to clean up that green thing. Please reply if anyone what that green thing is.
Gajeel Thanks for watching! The yellow thing-is it the chunk of cuttlebone I added to provide calcium, or the layer of detritus? The green stuff on the bottom of your tank is probably detritus...shed skins, waste, etc. I often some of that when I do water changes.
Ryin88 It just works by siphon: once it is primed (by filling it completely with water and putting in into the tank without getting any air in it), I just have to turn the knob to turn it on. It works well, but the downside is that the water inside the tubing goes anoxic, so it smells like sulfur for a few seconds when I turn it on. For that reason, I don’t really use it anymore.
@aquarimax pets - I just set up a couple of buckets to culture greenwater. Have freshwater mussels that I'm feeding it to. Going to get a culture of daphnia going again.
Got couple questions: 1. What is the PH of your daphnia tank? 2. When you do the water change, you mentioned that you don't use the water from fish/plant tanks. In that case, what kind of water do you use to fill up the daphnia tank? My daphnia culture was successfully explode from 100 to 1000s daphnia in a 3g tank less than couple weeks, but it completely crashed right on my 1st water change... :( I believe my mistake was I did a 50% WC w/ mixing 1/2 tank water + 1/2 cooled boiled drinking/tap water... But I couldn't figure out if it's from the 50% WC, or the mixture of the refill water...
I will need to test the pH and let you know, I left my ph test kit at work. 😳 It is very possible that a 50% water change was the problem, if the pH was lower than the replacement water, it could have caused ammonium to change to ammonia. On the other hand, it could have been tapwater, there are often traces of heavy metals in it that will kill them.
Thanks again for a great tutorial, this one on daphnia. I was hoping you could share the type of daphnia that are the easiest to raise and to find on the market? Is it possible to tell if you’re getting what they say you’re buying?
Mark Von Feldt you’re welcome! Daphnia pulex are common, and fairly easy. Moina species are very similar to daphnia, yet even easier. It can be difficult to tell which species you are getting without a look at the daphnia/ephippia under a microscope. The ones I have, for example, were sold as ‘Russian Red Daphnia,’ without a scientific name. I believe there were two species in the initial culture, but one has since disappeared.
I've had success with yeast.... though I will say that I did have a few significant failures with yeast when I first started. When I first started feeding with yeast I prepared the yeast the same way you would when baking with yeast, and how it tells you to on most yeast packaging. That being use very warm water, and add sugar. For some reason caused my cultures to crash when I accidentally put in too much. I've heard a few explanations for this like the formation of acohol(which it wasn't, that takes at least 2 days) to something called "shock excretion" but whatever the case, when my yeast culture was prepared this way, I had frequent culture crashes. Later I saw someone else raise thier culture on yeast, but did not prepare it with sugar. I did the same and have never had another crash of my cultures. So while anecdotal, I've had success with yeast. I will say though that I usually suplement their diets with more varied sources when I know I will have need of them for raising fry, just to get their nutritional value up. But just for the sake of keeping the cultures alive until they are again needed, yeast works fine for me.
Tay h thanks for sharing, that is good information! When I used yeast in the past, I had the most success when I dissolved it was n water before adding it, and did not add sugar either. 👍
I always culture my daphnia outdoors with direct sunlight, i wonder if it can be cultured indoors without any light source, probably will try it in my next project. Thanks for the video though ...
professorM I have raised a few different species of fairy shrimp, I really enjoy them! In this video I show the first week or two of my beavertail fairy shrimp project: ua-cam.com/video/kVksiIuxr0c/v-deo.html and here is one of my really old videos of some redtail fairy shrimp I raised: ua-cam.com/video/u2ZutzFiaBs/v-deo.html (you can see Daphnia, clam shrimp, and seed shrimp in the aquarium as well.)
professorM The two features in the videos need a dormant egg stage, as far as I know. I kept another species (found locally) that did not need a dormant stage...nauplii just appeared in the tank. I have looked into that Thai species a bit, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Hey! Awesome video and tank set up!! I had a quick question: how did you set up your water? I’ve heard that spring water is ok, but the daphnia require hard water. I currently have soft water aquarium water and natural spring ozonated water at hand but I’m not sure how to get it just right
Hi, and thanks so much for all the awesome info and advice that you share. I was wondering if you've heard of anyone using powdered nutritional yeast, or Bacter AE in a food mix?
I've used bacter ae with spiraling and bee pollen. It was in my outdoor tubs though, so they had other sources of food. It definitely didn't harm the culture though, and it works well for shrimp so I assume the daphnia like it too
I have some daphnia in a jar that I got out of a lake (I wasn’t really expecting to get anything I was just wondering what I could get out of the water, I mainly was just looking to get some free plants) and I was wondering how long I should have the culture going before feeding it to the fish. I have four minnows so I don’t need a ton of food for them I just want to improve their diet a bit. Can they live in the jar without the huge setup? Also what temperature should I keep it at because I have a spare heater laying around I just don’t know what to set it at.
Spivey C I made a video specifically about culturing daphnia in a jar: ua-cam.com/video/b0ZlwtjJu9c/v-deo.html. It should give you the information you need. 😊👍Room temperature will be fine, no need for a heater.
Hi i have a question regarding the Daphnia culture. In case i don't have any access to natural source of water what kind of water can I use for the proper growth of the culture ?
@@malayaghosh2278 it depends on the daphnia and the water source. I use dechlorinated water for mine, and they do well, but with other strains of daphnia or different water, results could vary.
Something I have been doing for a while now, based on a tip from Adam B. I add Aqueon algae rounds whole. The scuds I keep with the daphnia munch on the algae rounds and release a cloud of fine particles into the water, which the daphnia eat. It works great!
Julie Mcgugan they do move very similarly, I totally see what you mean. They are crustaceans, though, so they are not closely related to water boatman.
Jake Grammer I keep them at room temperature, the ambient temperature varying between 65 and 78 F in the room, depending on season. They aren’t picky that way. I do sell them. You can go to my ‘about’ page on UA-cam, and email me from there, and I will send a price list. 👍
enjoyed this video, just missing "how/where to get start daphnia" .. my tank used to have Daphnia but i've not seem them in awhile or maybe their population is so low i just havent founded them (my new dwarf Gourami might have decimated them lol) ... anyway does 'big box' pet stores have them or need to buy online?
What do you do with that gallon of water you siphon off? Does it have daphnia in it? Is it what you use to feed your fish? I’ve just discovered your channel, I’ll go watch some more videos to see how you do things. Thank you.
Mega MindyLou I usually try to minimize the Daphnia I catch when I remove water, but if I end up getting a lot, I will usually pour it through a net and feed them to the fish, Thanks so much for watching!
smorc655 there is s lot of confusion regarding daphnia names in the hobby, but I was sold this strain as ‘Russian Ref Daphnia’ , without a scientific name. They are extremely hardy. Daphnia pulex is another good option. If you can source Moina, they are a good candidate for high-density culture.
Hi,My second batch of Daphnia crashed after a week. Can’t understand what I’m doing wrong??I changed from yeast in my first batch to the flour and spirulina mix in my second. Feeding about 4 ml per day to a colony of 700.Is it my water??Can you recommend a fresh water food that I can culture that is more hardy? I’m feeding wild caught Gourami with smallish mouths. I primarily feed them freshly hatched baby brine 4 times a week. I also feed black worms quite often and flightless fruit flies occasionally. I’ve got a 20 gallon tank set up exclusively for the culture but can’t keep anything alive. Really frustrating. Just want to provide something else to feed. Any advice will help. I’ve spent a lot on the daphnia and would like to try something perhaps easier with my feeder tank.Thanks Russ! Great informative channel!!!
Matt Williams Hi Matt, and thanks for watching! 😊👍 It could be your water, but you could try decreasing the feeding...to every other day or every three days, but if you want a species that you can culture in that tank that is easier, try amphipods/scuds. If you want, you can even culture Daphnia together with scuds with no additional effort. The scuds kick up fine particles of food as they eat, and the Daphnia thrive. If your hours is are eating flightless fruit flies, they should be able to eat scuds. 👍 here is my culture video on the species : ua-cam.com/video/BIRyuTnWF6c/v-deo.html
Hi I just watched this entire video and I am now inspired to start a daphnia culture, but I'd like to know whether freeze-dried daphnia can be used to feed betta fry, because I can't seem to find any info on this on google. What is your opinion?
Nashorn Great question. Freeze-dried daphnia would tend to be too large until the daphnia fry had had some time to grow. For betta fry I used Infusoria and vinegar eels, then switched to baby brine shrimp and walterworms.
@@Aquarimax If thats the case, would it be advisable to feed live daphnia besides the choices you suggested to betta fry as their first feed? I'm thinking of breeding betta, but the last time I tried growing my betta fry I foolishly used store-bought fish food that was way too big for the betta fry to eat, resulting in the widespread destruction of the fry.
Thanks for your videos on Daphnia. I've setup a 10 gallon and a couple mason jars as backup. The colonies are growing but my ammonia is reading from 1 to 2 ppm, nitrite around .5 ppm and nitrite and 10ppm for nitrate. I've been doing 25% water changes daily that helps but it goes right back up. Do you see this kind of readings with your daphnia tanks? I'm feeding 6-10 ml of spirulina mix that's 1/8 tsp spirulina to 1/4 cup water.
How long do hydrae live out of water? I want to kill off this problem without necessarily using a ton of chemicals. I am considering A. Reusing the tank for Daphnia, or B. Setting up a quarantine tank for incoming new fish. Would like to save Amphipods, beneficial bacteria and snails if possible
Thanks for the informative video. Would you please share me if you have an experiance of feeding spirulina powder alone for Daphnia culture? I am struggling to grow using spirulina powder, but they die with in five days.
Seow Weisin Thank you! Yes, it is good to siphon some of the detritus out of the tank at each water change. I don’t suggest removing it all at once, though.
I am currently trying my hand at daphnia. So far I am doing well, and your video showed me the error in my ways; I was trying to do too much. I have a question I hope you can answer. I have some type of worm-ish things in the daphnia tank. I see them on the glass, and I see some free swimming that look like little S's. I believe that both the glass ones and free swimming ones are the same. Any idea what they are, or if they are harmful to either my fish or daphnia? If they are harmful, do I have to start over, or do you have tips you could share on getting rid of them safely in my daphnia tank?
Trishelle DeCoite they could be, and probably are, detritus worms. If so, they are harmless to fish and daphnia, and are in fact an additional live food for your fish. 👍
Vladimir Levachyov The don’t require mechanical filtration-in fact, it would be counterproductive- as they filter fine particles from the water as food. There is some biological filtration in a good daphnia setup, as bacterial colonies on the surfaces help to process waste.
Hello Sir, i found a creature which is similar to one of the creature showcased in your this video...But i dont know actually WHAT IT IS ??? Please Help. Its Showcased at 4:54 - 4:55,, and can we feed them to fish.
The creature I showed is an adult brine shrimp, and they can definitely be fed to fish. If you found yours in freshwater, it is probably a fairy shrimp, also a good food for fish. 👍
Kevin Leong Great question! There are many genera and species of cladocerans (as you may know, Daphnia is a genus name that is also used as a common name for all cladocerans.), I have only kept a few of them-perhaps 6 to 10 different types. In my experience they vary mostly in size, the density at which they can be cultured, and hardiness. Moina, for example, can be cultured at very high densities. Daphnia magna are the largest of those commonly cultured. I once cultured a strain that was very, very small, only a little bigger than brine shrimp nauplii. The strain I have now is very hardy, withstanding a wide range of water conditions. I hope that helps, 👍
It depends on the mineral content of the water, and also if there are any hydra hiding out in your betta tanks. If your water has some natural mineral content it should work.
Hello I can't seem to find Green Pea Flour I saw in one of your videos where you have the daphnia in a jar and you have a mix of Spirulina Powder, Brown Rice Flour, and Pea/Garbanzo Flour for food but in this one you use the same things but add wheat flour, and Green Pea Flour for a food source other than the two added is both safe to use or any different from the other? Other than just adding two other ingredients? I'm about or order some daphnia to feed to my baby Axolotls and want to get a good system going before my axolotls hatch
Ashley Green I notice the best results when I mix spirulina with several flours, but garbanzo flour is fine instead of green pea powder if you are unable to find it. However, if you do a search for “pea protein powder” you should find some.
Fish in with the daphnia? Well, the daphnia wouldn’t last very long, but the water quality in a daphnia I tank isn’t necessarily the best suited to fish.
@@Aquarimax Couldnt they coexist in a tank somehow? Say it was one small fish that could never eat alll of the daphnia so they could keep reproducing and the fish would still be able to eat some daphnias everyday no worries... OR I could culture the daphnia in a semi closed area inside the tank like a cave of sorts that the fish couldnt enter but the dapnia could get out from time to time... how about it? :)
Paul Boyle With the scuds in the culture to break down larger food items into small particles, you can theoretically rely on pieces of vegetables and fish food. As far as flours, almost any grain or bean flour can work in the combo, variety is good, the spirulina boosts production, but is not 100% needed.
Kyle Spotted Bear I have heard that they will sometimes gang up on very tiny fry if they are in large numbers. I have kept copepods in small numbers in my aquaria and incidentally with other cultures, such as daphnia, but never cultured them by themselves. One of my subscribers, Dr. Spud, has done so, and says that he keeps them just like Daphnia, and that they are very prolific when kept alone.
Aquarimax Pets do you have a link to his channel? Also thanks for the amphipod culture video! I just started my own a few days ago and they’re doing fine
Kyle Spotted Bear here is a link to one of his videos so you can contact him: ua-cam.com/video/Et6aDoTPbBE/v-deo.html. . Glad to hear my amphipods video has been helpful! 😊👍
Hi, great video. I have a question, I have many aquarium from which to take water for daphnia water changes. However, all my large aquariums contain fancy goldfish, this means that the nitrates can be quite high, ie 40-60 ppm. Is nitrate a problem for daphnia?
Denise Pollitt Not necessarily, especially if you have some suspended algae growing in there, the algae will love the nitrates, and the daphnia will love the algae.
Wonderful, helpful informative video. I'd like to start culturing daphnia for my schoutedeni puffers. Can I buy a starter culture from you? I live in the midwest USA
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New sub, thank you for this video. It's the most helpful one on daphnia that I've watched, and there have been quite a few!
Alyxandra Ramsey Thank you, I am glad it is helpful! 😊👍
I was at the garden store today and saw they had buckets with water lilies for sale - one bucket in particular caught my eye as it had a massive daphnia population. I bought the lily so I could get my hands on those excellent daphnia! I'm going to try culturing in a number of containers to try to avoid crashes.
fossphur Awesome find! Great idea to keep in multiple containers. Good luck! 👍
What's the name of the store you saw the daphnia? Thank you
@@pinoylakasradiostreaming5316 it was just the local garden store in my town, not a big box or chain store. They usually just have flowers, trees, herbs, ferns, veg, and very rarely some pond or aquatic plants depending on availability from their supplier.
Smart move! Lucky you!
Save your old jars, you can drill a hole in the top for an airline tube and pop them near a window (make sure not to accidentally cook them). I've taken to saving mayonnaise jars. You can even use a storage tote for a giant culture.
I’ve watched your videos over and over again. And honestly thanks to your information my daphnia are B O O M I N G
Curtis Dunnigan Excellent! That is just what I like to hear 👍🏽
Have you tried using 2×1pond with chicken poop or quail poop?
You can harvest over 100ml a day:)
Really looking forward to make myself a 3×1m pond
Ferdian Betta fish you can harvest huge amounts from a pond. I want to try that someday.
@@Aquarimax you can watch some tutorial from indonesian video they are always want 1kg a day😅
@@ferdianbettafish3659 How long has your lived using poultry poop?
I appreciate this video. Very informative and you didn't purposely waste anyone's time. Thx.
Thank you for this - I am in a neverending struggle with my daphnia culture. I first started culturing it indoors - and it crashed multiple times. It was aerated, warm, lighted, and fed yeast/spirulina. I eventually moved it outdoors over the summer where it was kept in a 5 gallon bucket. No aeration, no water changes, no food.. just lots of sunshine and whatever bugs fell in, and it did amazingly well. It's now winter again and I've brought it indoors, so I'm trying to learn more in the hope I can keep it alive this season! right now it's still in the five gallon bucket, aerated, lighted, and I've switched to flour and spirulina in the hopes the yeast was my problem. Cross your fingers for me!
Desert Bloom Bettas 🤞fingers crossed! The acclimation of the outdoor daphnia to indoors can be a little tricky...I recommend setting up one or two jar cultures as backup while you acclimate them to an indoor culture. 🤞
Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely do that. I have an empty breeder tank I'll start another culture in, just in case!
Desert Bloom Bettas good plan, and I hope I goes well! 😊👍
Where did you get your starter daphnia?
@@pinoylakasradiostreaming5316 ebay
that tip at 1:20 i've never seen that with the pvc pipe. thanks a lot!
rainishell Thanks! The pipe works well, although it began to smell rather like hydrogen sulfide when I first began to drain the tank. I eventually removed it. This is strange, as I had it for quite a long time without this issue.
@@Aquarimax so would u recommend that with a regular fish tank? thanks
Benjamin Codilla I would be concerned fish might swim up the pipe.
@@Aquarimax true but its only one beta fish. might be a future project i consider with another tank
Great info!!! i’ve had problems with the yeast. Maybe I’m overfeeding, but im going to the health food store today to buy all those flours 5:06 that you mentioned.
Ive watched loads of different live food guides and yours are by far the best. No nonsense just easy to digest direct and simple instructions brill.
Bruh... Had this video cast to the TV & was on the hunt for that damn cricket lurking by your recording equipment...
I was cleaning my jar of plants and was looking for mosquito larvae and saw these little creatures.I knew these were daphnia so I was looking through UA-cam and found the perfect videos for daphnia culture.😊
Thanks for posting this! I’m going to set up a daphnia culture soon to give my Sparkling Gouramis as live food
Wingless Excellent! The gouramis will love it!
How did it turn out
I'm writing a parody song about this genus and it's fun learning about them to see if I can make my lyrics better.
I would love to hear it!
Love the idea of flour and spiralina. Yeast is a variable live organism; great information.
Excellent video and thanks it was very helpful. I tried daphnia culture few time but always failed but now I will try again. I will use your advice and information. Blessings.
Luis Pérez-Ruiz Thank Luis! I am glad it is helpful! Best of luck with your daphnia culture, and feel free to ask me any questions you may have.
2 questions if you dont mind: 1- why not use a sponge filter? Isnt it important to keep water quality? It can do it as well as aerate? 2- what do we do with the debris which collects at the bottom? suck it out or leave it? When you do water changes do you suck from the bottom? 3- sunlight helps with algae growth so is good, but it also increases water temp. Is there a temperature which you would say is the maximum for a healthy culture?
Sponge filters, at least clean ones, tend to remove the particulate food the daphnia need. From the water column. Frequent partial water changes and algae growth help improve water quality, as well as healthy bacterial populations on the surface area in the tank. I periodically remove a portion of the debris from the bottom with water changes. 👍🏽
@@Aquarimax Thank you so much for the lightning fast response! I added one last question about temperature...asking is there a maximum temperature you think should be avoided? Thanks again for sharing, very informative and high quality information!
You’re welcome! I have kept these daphnia outside in temps over 100. F....of course, the water temp was probably in the 80s F. I would try to keep it
Below 85.
Very good! I could just sit and watch the little life forms in your daphnia tank instead of the fish. I collect mine from the water buts in my allotment. Always plenty in Summer but no so good in our cold winter.
Graham Hall I am glad you have the same fascination with them that I do! 😊 When I culture mine outside, they last from March to October, but the winter is too cold here as well.
thank you very much for sharing this video. it's a big help for my fish!!
herbman herbman you are very welcome! I am glad you find it helpful!
Thank you for in depth explanation on how to grow daphina, can I use tap water to start culture or is there specific requirement to type of water I need to have to start the culture?
It depends greatly on the strain of daphnia and on your tap water. I find the strain i work with does fine with my treated tap water, but many do not do well with tap water at all.
I love daphnia!
Shawn Hardy me too! 😊👍
First I will still need a starter daphnia culture.
Tropical storm Fred left a nice puddle and here it turned out to be packed with daphnia. I collected a few hundred in a net and here I am a few days later and there are over a thousand eazy. They grow fast to adults and the reproduction rate continues to the high side.
I found this, what I'll call a "wild strain" to be hardy, strong reproducers, survives on just a little algae, rice flour, pea flour, wheat flour and although it's not necessary I add just a VERY small tough of active yeast. Since daphnia are born pregnant it takes no time to to start and have a self suficent culture of daphnia that will reproduce fast enough to feed all your fish and their fry.
Pay attention to the video I've attached this comment to. I consider the author to be one of the for most experts in the field of raising not only daphnia cultures but many other types of cultures all good for your, fry through adult fish.
I intend next add a culture of his daphnia to hopefully even make my "wild strain" that much stronger. That will have to seen for me to believe, they may already be a better choice that the "Wild strain" I found.
Just leave a comment here and I'm sure he will be happy to sell you a starter culture as well.
Great video.
I was trying to keep Daphnia in a 60 litre tank, plus a couple of 12 litre jars and some in jam jars as backups.
I was mixing yeast and water and keeping it in the fridge but 3 times I found that all seem to crash at the same time after a few weeks.
After watching this, I'm thinking it might be the yeast mixture if it was over a week old.
So I'm going to give it another try using Spirulina and Flour mixture.
I saw in another comment that you use Prime water conditioner which answered a question I had as I heard Daphnia didn't like declorinators.
Thanks again and I've subscribed 👍
You’re welcome! I appreciate your subscribing!
It could indeed be the yeast, which I now use, but I don’t store in solution, I mix it fresh every time. If it is mixed fresh and thoroughly, it can work, but it is easy to overfeed.
Great video! I’ve been working on trying to culture daphnia for my fish room. It’s been a struggle given my room restriction as well as it often being way too cold outside to do it on a larger scale. So I’m still trying the small-scale indoor setups
Philthy Tanks Best of luck! How big is the aquarium you are using to culture them?
i miss the old days where private fish stoes had a constant supply of brine shrimp and i loved feeding my fish daphne, it would look like my tank was full of them, they called them water fleas and i think the fish loved the way they moved and brought out their natural hunting instinct
I do too. I remember going to the best fish/aquarium stores when I was a kid in the 60's and 70's, even when I lived in a very rural area.
It's disappointing now, employees don't know anything about keeping fish, the fish are in horrible shape and there isn't much choice in species, not where I live. I can't find cardinals anywhere, I don't remember the last time I saw a discus tank. What happened to hatchet fish.
Saltwater seems to be all the rage but even that is disappointing.
Thank you for this. Best tutorial on how to raise daphnia that I've seen. Looking forward to sharing my success!
Can i give them hikari first bites? It has spirulina in it. But it also has copper sulfate...will that be a problem?
Kathleen Monsegue I would steer clear of it if possible...that copper worries me a bit.
Hay bud great info what water temperature do daphnia like mate
bill and ben If you got them indoors, just about anything that is comfortable for you is comfortable for them. My room temps vary between about 18 C in winter to 26 C in summer, and they are fine all year. 👍🏽
Is that a typical stock level for your daphnia? My Endler's would go through that amount I a day.
In this size of tank, I don’t produce a lot, sometimes it is quite a bit higher than this stock level, but the number replenishes itself pretty fast, so I can feed off and have the same number again within days. There are also lots of scuds in the tank, so I can harvest large numbers of those as well. I would like to set up an outdoor stock tank for larger numbers at some point.
Unfortunately I wound up in the hospital since I'll needed to obtain a stater culture of daphnia from you, will.need costs and instructions from you.
The daphnia I found from tropical storm John is doing great. I had got maybe 100 a few days ago and now have 500+. Please advise
You want to get as large of a container as is feasible for these cultures. I think 50 gallons and up will result in a much more stable culture. Great video, love your channel.
sedghammer Thank you! 😊👍 I agree, the larger they are, the better in terms of production and stability.
I'm getting red daphnias Saturday but hope sooner
Wolfdreamer 29 Excellent! I hope they thrive for you!
Aquarimax is there anything I need to do like temp food water type ect?
I have a sealed jar of pond water with multiple snails, daphnia, seed shrimp, cyclops, duckweed and Canadian pondweed. What I noticed over time is that the seed shrimp inside evolved to be smaller, whilst the daphnia became larger. My cyclops also became very few in number.
Quite interesting ecosystem. I also never feed them. Sun is all they need!
Do you have videos of this system?
Hi. I have a question if you're not to busy and don't mind answering! Is a light a necessity, or can i just put it on a window? i live in cold Britain :) I just want to "grow" some in a glass jar.
Hi! A window could work...too much light can be worse than too little though. A north-facing window would be good, as long as the temps don’t get to the point where it is forming ice in the water, you should be ok.
How do you start you cultures and how did you get hydra into your planted tanks? These videos are very informative. Thank you!
Aaron Chaiklin Thank you! To start my cultures, I just got some Daphnia from another local aquarist, and later added the scuds . Hydra are not uncommon in planted aquaria as hitchhikers...they usually go unnoticed, in very small numbers, unless they encounter a plentiful food source, such as Daphnia, newly hatched brine shrimp, microworms, etc.
Appreciate your comment about the feeding of yeast. After having great success with pure spirulina powder, I switched to yeast and suffered a major crash in both my culture. I have restarted them with the survivors. I am now back on the spirulina powder feeding and will have to live with negative comments of family and friends on the distinct yellow tint to the water. Is this yellow discoloration, after the the initial green feeding, typical?
pondboss I haven't been using Spirulina as a sole food--only when mixed with the flours--and I haven't noticed a yellow tint...I wonder if that only occurs with pure spirulina? It might be worth trying the flour/spirulina mixture and seeing if makes a difference.
I will give using some sort of flour + spirulina mix it a try after I build my cultures back up. But I am committed to staying away from yeast.
pondboss sounds good! If you have a chance, let me know how your cultures respond. 👍
How to you clean the stuff on the bottom of the aquarium and how often please
I use a siphon to remove it about once a week
Hi , where do I get the dsphnia eggs from ? Sorry complete noob as regards dsphnia , many thanks ☺️
Jay Jay You can often find them on eBay or Aquabid.com 👍
Can you explain why you keep the sponge in the aquarium? And how did you get it to sink? I'm really glad I found this video, because I was thinking of some kind of PVC siphon for my daphnia culture, but it is nice to see it in action!
Ivy Greene great questions! The sponge helps provide surface area for beneficial bacteria, as well as for the scuds That live with the Daphnia. Once the air bubbles were gone, it sank very easily. I squeezed it a few times underwater to help with that. The PVC siphon worked well, but started to smell after a while, every time I used it, so while it is functional, I decided to remove it.
Awesome, thanks!
hello I live in Colombia and try to raise daphnia outside, but there is a problem I live in a forest with many small tree frogs, and specially now in the rain season every day they lay hundreds of eggs in all the water they can find, I have thousands of tadpoles and they also get into the buckets with the daphnia and in the tanks with green water to feed the daphnias, I don't know if that might be a problem or do I have to keep the daphnias without tadpoles!? I see you have an air hose making bubbles is that necessary? thanks!
I would recommend using a fine screen to keep the frogs out if you notice they are causing issues.
The air hose is not necessary, but it does tend to increase the yields of daphnia quite a bit
daphnia is great for small fish. my betta fish love them
What do you think is the minimum container size to raise daphnia?
Simply Betta Great question! I have raised this strain in 1/2 gallon containers. I just give them a drop or two of food and a good stir once a day. A container like that works well if you just want to produce small quantities of daphnia. 👍
That is really cool, because everywhere I have been reading says smaller containers are really dangerous for daphnia colonies and they can crash really easily. Of course maybe not feeding yeast can really help minimize that risk?
These must be those magnums. Do you sell?
Simply Betta The risk of crashing definitely increases in a smaller container, but I do think you're right...the flour mixture is less crash-prone a food than yeast. 👍 I do sell them, shoot me an email on my about page and I'll give you all the details. 😁👍
that is not an question''what do you think how small container to raise daphnia,they multiply fast in large groups and big tanks,so 100daphnia 10litres 1/3 10Gallon is 3 montsh 400daphnia,but e sure to harvest
Highly informative, thank you. Would distilled water be a good choice to grow my colony? Is bottled water a better choice?
Fred Knox bottled spring water is better than distilled They do need some minerals in the water. 👍
@@Aquarimax I'll give it a go, thank you
Fred Knox let me know how it turns out 👍
@@Aquarimax I was going to pick up a culture, but will wait a few weeks, until things start improving. I currently have plenty of food for my betta, need to treat algae in my tank right now, I'll give you an update when I'm up and running. Thanks
Fred Knox sounds good. Waiting a few weeks at this point could be prudent. 👍
Fabulous Live food to culture and another Fabulous Aquarimax video!!
colinbarsby 😁👍 Thank you Colin, music to my ears!
Out of curiosity why not kill off the hydra? Fenbendazole (dog dewormer) is very aquarium safe even for shrimp and snails and itll knock out ur hydra in a few days time. Well.. maybe not that soon I caught mine early cuz I wanted to keep shrimp. Best of luck thanks so much for the info!
Caity Stepleton Yes, if you notice the hydra in time, that is a very effective way to control them. I am not entirely sure it is safe for daphnia, as they tend to be very sensitive to chemicals. It may be just fine for them. A good tip, and worth a try for sure if your daphnia tank has hydra, as leaving the hydra in there will surely result in the demise of your daphnia. 👍
@@Aquarimax oh my bad I was thinking the hydra were in ur other tank not the daphnia tank. It may do something I'm not certain. I would assume hydra would harm daphnia or do they coexist?
Caity Stepleton Ah, I see. I don’t currently have any issues with hydra...I haven’t seen any for years, but since I have planted tanks, I don’t use water from those tanks in the slim chance that I could introduce a hydra. Hydra will feed on daphnia, and if left unchecked, will quickly wipe out a daphnia culture. 👍
Awesome timing on this video, I just got my hands on some Daphnia Magna and some Daphnia Pulex a week ago. I've been feeding them yeast and am a little confused about the feeding amount. Based on what I was told I should be using around 1/8th of a teaspoon of yeast for my 2 10 gallon tanks, then feed when the water clears up. But...my water has been getting clear within 4-6 hrs of feeding, rather than 2-3 days as I expected. I only have a small amount of daphnia in each tank so I thought the tanks would stay cloudy longer. My setup is pretty much the same as yours, 10 gallon tanks with a sponge filter and a little java moss. I also have ramshorn and pond snails in my tanks.
Maybe I should switch to using flour as you do, seems easier to me. Also need to get some spirulina powder!
Glad to know it is helpful! The sponge filter may actually be filtering some of the yeast out of the water. I would recommend keeping the sponge filter in the tank for surface area but detaching it from the airline. Just let airline bubble. And I agree...the flour mixture is easier! It works without spirulina, just with somewhat lower production.
Do you mean just regular organic Spirulina powder you can get at the Vitamin store? Thanks!
whitedragon1337 where do I get daphnia?
I have a really hard time tolerating the noise that the air bubblers make, the machines are so loud! Is there any way to culture daphnia in a filtered tank versus an aerated tank, or will a filter always suck the daphnia up and kill them?
I wouldn’t recommend a filter, but I have good news for you: you can culture daphnia without aeration. The yields will tend to be lower, but still possible. Just stir the water water up whenever you feed.
Love your videos and I learn a lot from you. What is the yellow thing on the bottom of your tank? My tank have build up of green thing that look like their bio waste but I'm not sure if that is waste or not. I only use Spirulina to feed them and added about 10 snails and one pleco recently hoping to clean up that green thing. Please reply if anyone what that green thing is.
Gajeel Thanks for watching! The yellow thing-is it the chunk of cuttlebone I added to provide calcium, or the layer of detritus? The green stuff on the bottom of your tank is probably detritus...shed skins, waste, etc. I often some of that when I do water changes.
Nice....surprising the temps aren’t mentioned.
Jack Hoffman Thanks! Daphnia are quite tolerant temperature-wise, so any reasonable room temperature is fine. 👍
Excellent video! Regards form Ecuador.
Paulo Preis Thank you so much! I appreciate it, Paulo!
My catfish never talks pls help
Gaijilla himself You just may have an introverted catfish. Try enrolling your catfish in a public speaking class. 🤣👍
Best daphnia breeding video. Now, it's easy!
roger sfc Glad it is helpful! 😊👍
how do you get that PVC water changer to turn on, On command? Do you have a video?
Ryin88 It just works by siphon: once it is primed (by filling it completely with water and putting in into the tank without getting any air in it), I just have to turn the knob to turn it on. It works well, but the downside is that the water inside the tubing goes anoxic, so it smells like sulfur for a few seconds when I turn it on. For that reason, I don’t really use it anymore.
Hi.Frnd. Do they take food in dark ? no light ...
Kevser İşmen They will eat whether or not they are in bright light.
@aquarimax pets - I just set up a couple of buckets to culture greenwater. Have freshwater mussels that I'm feeding it to. Going to get a culture of daphnia going again.
Sedghammer I hope they thrive for you...they sure love greenwater! 😊👍
Got couple questions:
1. What is the PH of your daphnia tank?
2. When you do the water change, you mentioned that you don't use the water from fish/plant tanks.
In that case, what kind of water do you use to fill up the daphnia tank?
My daphnia culture was successfully explode from 100 to 1000s daphnia in a 3g tank less than couple weeks, but it completely crashed right on my 1st water change... :(
I believe my mistake was I did a 50% WC w/ mixing 1/2 tank water + 1/2 cooled boiled drinking/tap water...
But I couldn't figure out if it's from the 50% WC, or the mixture of the refill water...
I will need to test the pH and let you know, I left my ph test kit at work. 😳 It is very possible that a 50% water change was the problem, if the pH was lower than the replacement water, it could have caused ammonium to change to ammonia. On the other hand, it could have been tapwater, there are often traces of heavy metals in it that will kill them.
Can you just use solely spirulina powder alone? I heard some Vietnamese people mix it with rice water. The white water you get from rinsing rice.
You could, but I have found better results with a mix.
Aquarimax Pets Would you say green water is best?
VB 23 It’s a great natural daphnia food, but for me spirulina and mixed flours is convenient and easy.
Aquarimax Pets I have plenty of green water from my uncle huge ponds. So I’ll use that then I’ll turn to spirulina if I run out.
VB 23 that should work...just make sure not to collect hydra along with the green water. 👍
Thanks again for a great tutorial, this one on daphnia. I was hoping you could share the type of daphnia that are the easiest to raise and to find on the market? Is it possible to tell if you’re getting what they say you’re buying?
Mark Von Feldt you’re welcome! Daphnia pulex are common, and fairly easy. Moina species are very similar to daphnia, yet even easier. It can be difficult to tell which species you are getting without a look at the daphnia/ephippia under a microscope. The ones I have, for example, were sold as ‘Russian Red Daphnia,’ without a scientific name. I believe there were two species in the initial culture, but one has since disappeared.
I've had success with yeast.... though I will say that I did have a few significant failures with yeast when I first started. When I first started feeding with yeast I prepared the yeast the same way you would when baking with yeast, and how it tells you to on most yeast packaging. That being use very warm water, and add sugar. For some reason caused my cultures to crash when I accidentally put in too much. I've heard a few explanations for this like the formation of acohol(which it wasn't, that takes at least 2 days) to something called "shock excretion" but whatever the case, when my yeast culture was prepared this way, I had frequent culture crashes. Later I saw someone else raise thier culture on yeast, but did not prepare it with sugar. I did the same and have never had another crash of my cultures. So while anecdotal, I've had success with yeast. I will say though that I usually suplement their diets with more varied sources when I know I will have need of them for raising fry, just to get their nutritional value up. But just for the sake of keeping the cultures alive until they are again needed, yeast works fine for me.
Tay h thanks for sharing, that is good information! When I used yeast in the past, I had the most success when I dissolved it was n water before adding it, and did not add sugar either. 👍
I always culture my daphnia outdoors with direct sunlight, i wonder if it can be cultured indoors without any light source,
probably will try it in my next project. Thanks for the video though ...
Have you tried raising freshwater fairy shrimps? You can get eggs just like brine shrimps.
You can raise them with the daphnia I suppose.
professorM I have raised a few different species of fairy shrimp, I really enjoy them! In this video I show the first week or two of my beavertail fairy shrimp project: ua-cam.com/video/kVksiIuxr0c/v-deo.html
and here is one of my really old videos of some redtail fairy shrimp I raised: ua-cam.com/video/u2ZutzFiaBs/v-deo.html (you can see Daphnia, clam shrimp, and seed shrimp in the aquarium as well.)
cool. Did they reproduce in the tank? Or do they produce eggs and need a dormant stage?
There's a species from Thailand I might look at.
professorM The two features in the videos need a dormant egg stage, as far as I know. I kept another species (found locally) that did not need a dormant stage...nauplii just appeared in the tank. I have looked into that Thai species a bit, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Hey! Awesome video and tank set up!! I had a quick question: how did you set up your water? I’ve heard that spring water is ok, but the daphnia require hard water. I currently have soft water aquarium water and natural spring ozonated water at hand but I’m not sure how to get it just right
Thank you! I'd try the aquarium water or the spring water.
The daphnia are doing well. Have gone from a few to several hundred in the tank. How long do you refrigerate the food mixed for them?
Glad to hear it!
The refrigerated mixed liquid will last at least a month, and the powder lasts even longer in the fridge...probably 6-12 months.
Hi, and thanks so much for all the awesome info and advice that you share. I was wondering if you've heard of anyone using powdered nutritional yeast, or Bacter AE in a food mix?
I've used bacter ae with spiraling and bee pollen. It was in my outdoor tubs though, so they had other sources of food. It definitely didn't harm the culture though, and it works well for shrimp so I assume the daphnia like it too
Ive just got mine in a glass container on my window sill and do nothing else at all and it works, they seem to feed of the Algae.
Very helpful video, much thanks
FirstTimeAquatics you are very welcome!
I just set up a Daphnia tank in a window. How long should the water age? I used NovAqua to neutralize chloramine in the water.
I have some daphnia in a jar that I got out of a lake (I wasn’t really expecting to get anything I was just wondering what I could get out of the water, I mainly was just looking to get some free plants) and I was wondering how long I should have the culture going before feeding it to the fish. I have four minnows so I don’t need a ton of food for them I just want to improve their diet a bit. Can they live in the jar without the huge setup? Also what temperature should I keep it at because I have a spare heater laying around I just don’t know what to set it at.
Spivey C I made a video specifically about culturing daphnia in a jar: ua-cam.com/video/b0ZlwtjJu9c/v-deo.html. It should give you the information you need. 😊👍Room temperature will be fine, no need for a heater.
Hi i have a question regarding the Daphnia culture. In case i don't have any access to natural source of water what kind of water can I use for the proper growth of the culture ?
You can use aged aquarium water, as long as you can be sure it does not contain hydra.
Thank you for the response....can I use dechlorinated tap water for the culture?
@@malayaghosh2278 it depends on the daphnia and the water source. I use dechlorinated water for mine, and they do well, but with other strains of daphnia or different water, results could vary.
Is it equal amounts of all the flour and spiraling powder? Thank you
That is usually how I do it 👍🏼
Hey. I'm wanting to try culturing daphnia and was wondering if algae wafers would work if grinded up into a fine powder?
Something I have been doing for a while now, based on a tip from Adam B. I add Aqueon algae rounds whole. The scuds I keep with the daphnia munch on the algae rounds and release a cloud of fine particles into the water, which the daphnia eat. It works great!
Are these related to the water boatman? They look and move similarly
Julie Mcgugan they do move very similarly, I totally see what you mean. They are crustaceans, though, so they are not closely related to water boatman.
Hey, Please Respond ❗
At what temperature do you keep the tank? No heater, warm room temperature❓
Thanks 👍
Rico Kowalski Just room temps, no heater. The room temp varies from 65 in the winter to 80 in the summer.
Sir,This Mixer How many days can keep in a Refrigerator?Is it not spoiled?
cichlidpark sri lanka It lasts more than a month for me, usually. 👍
How about using a sponge filter ?
sergio wilches I use sponge material, but not attached to air, because a sponge filter will pull the food partícles the daphnia need from the water.
Aquarimax Pets thank you for the clarification
What temperature do you keep them at? Do you sell these same daphinia and scuds? If so, where?
Jake Grammer I keep them at room temperature, the ambient temperature varying between 65 and 78 F in the room, depending on season. They aren’t picky that way. I do sell them. You can go to my ‘about’ page on UA-cam, and email me from there, and I will send a price list. 👍
enjoyed this video, just missing "how/where to get start daphnia" .. my tank used to have Daphnia but i've not seem them in awhile or maybe their population is so low i just havent founded them (my new dwarf Gourami might have decimated them lol) ... anyway does 'big box' pet stores have them or need to buy online?
Generally you big box pet stores do not carry them, but www.Aquabid.com usually has them.
What do you do with that gallon of water you siphon off? Does it have daphnia in it? Is it what you use to feed your fish? I’ve just discovered your channel, I’ll go watch some more videos to see how you do things. Thank you.
Mega MindyLou I usually try to minimize the Daphnia I catch when I remove water, but if I end up getting a lot, I will usually pour it through a net and feed them to the fish, Thanks so much for watching!
What do you recommend as the go-to daphnia species to look for?
smorc655 there is s lot of confusion regarding daphnia names in the hobby, but I was sold this strain as ‘Russian Ref Daphnia’ , without a scientific name. They are extremely hardy. Daphnia pulex is another good option. If you can source Moina, they are a good candidate for high-density culture.
Great info 👍🏼
Glad it was helpful!
Hi,My second batch of Daphnia crashed after a week. Can’t understand what I’m doing wrong??I changed from yeast in my first batch to the flour and spirulina mix in my second. Feeding about 4 ml per day to a colony of 700.Is it my water??Can you recommend a fresh water food that I can culture that is more hardy? I’m feeding wild caught Gourami with smallish mouths. I primarily feed them freshly hatched baby brine 4 times a week. I also feed black worms quite often and flightless fruit flies occasionally. I’ve got a 20 gallon tank set up exclusively for the culture but can’t keep anything alive. Really frustrating. Just want to provide something else to feed. Any advice will help. I’ve spent a lot on the daphnia and would like to try something perhaps easier with my feeder tank.Thanks Russ! Great informative channel!!!
Matt Williams Hi Matt, and thanks for watching! 😊👍
It could be your water, but you could try decreasing the feeding...to every other day or every three days, but if you want a species that you can culture in that tank that is easier, try amphipods/scuds. If you want, you can even culture Daphnia together with scuds with no additional effort. The scuds kick up fine particles of food as they eat, and the Daphnia thrive. If your hours is are eating flightless fruit flies, they should be able to eat scuds. 👍 here is my culture video on the species : ua-cam.com/video/BIRyuTnWF6c/v-deo.html
Excellent,informative info...>THANK YOU!
Mark Purpel Thank you, very glad to hear it is helpful!
Hi I just watched this entire video and I am now inspired to start a daphnia culture, but I'd like to know whether freeze-dried daphnia can be used to feed betta fry, because I can't seem to find any info on this on google. What is your opinion?
Nashorn Great question. Freeze-dried daphnia would tend to be too large until the daphnia fry had had some time to grow. For betta fry I used Infusoria and vinegar eels, then switched to baby brine shrimp and walterworms.
@@Aquarimax If thats the case, would it be advisable to feed live daphnia besides the choices you suggested to betta fry as their first feed? I'm thinking of breeding betta, but the last time I tried growing my betta fry I foolishly used store-bought fish food that was way too big for the betta fry to eat, resulting in the widespread destruction of the fry.
Hi I’ve watched a couple of times I don’t hear you talk about temperature, do you have any advice on that? Thanks Lee
I have kept them in 100F weather and under an inch of ice. They are very hardy when it comes to temperature
Thanks for your videos on Daphnia. I've setup a 10 gallon and a couple mason jars as backup. The colonies are growing but my ammonia is reading from 1 to 2 ppm, nitrite around .5 ppm and nitrite and 10ppm for nitrate. I've been doing 25% water changes daily that helps but it goes right back up. Do you see this kind of readings with your daphnia tanks? I'm feeding 6-10 ml of spirulina mix that's 1/8 tsp spirulina to 1/4 cup water.
How long do hydrae live out of water? I want to kill off this problem without necessarily using a ton of chemicals.
I am considering
A. Reusing the tank for Daphnia, or
B. Setting up a quarantine tank for incoming new fish.
Would like to save Amphipods, beneficial bacteria and snails if possible
Thanks for the informative video. Would you please share me if you have an experiance of feeding spirulina powder alone for Daphnia culture? I am struggling to grow using spirulina powder, but they die with in five days.
wow！i love your video 😍😍do we need to syphon out the dead daphnia that sank to the bottom of tank ？？？
Seow Weisin Thank you! Yes, it is good to siphon some of the detritus out of the tank at each water change. I don’t suggest removing it all at once, though.
Hi would the spirulina powder alone work? Thanks
I am currently trying my hand at daphnia. So far I am doing well, and your video showed me the error in my ways; I was trying to do too much. I have a question I hope you can answer. I have some type of worm-ish things in the daphnia tank. I see them on the glass, and I see some free swimming that look like little S's. I believe that both the glass ones and free swimming ones are the same. Any idea what they are, or if they are harmful to either my fish or daphnia? If they are harmful, do I have to start over, or do you have tips you could share on getting rid of them safely in my daphnia tank?
Trishelle DeCoite they could be, and probably are, detritus worms. If so, they are harmless to fish and daphnia, and are in fact an additional live food for your fish. 👍
Prettt cool!! How do you culture the scuds?
Navan Cognac here is my latest video on scud culture: ua-cam.com/video/BIRyuTnWF6c/v-deo.html
Aquarimax thank you I find this fascinating. I have one more question for you; where can I get a some scuds to start my own culture?
Navan Cognac Aquabid.com is a good place to look, several sellers usually carry them, but it depends on where you are located.
Ok thanks I will check it out.
Thanks for the video. Do they need filtration?
Vladimir Levachyov The don’t require mechanical filtration-in fact, it would be counterproductive- as they
filter fine particles from the water as food. There is some biological filtration in a good daphnia setup, as bacterial colonies on the surfaces help to process waste.
@@Aquarimax so basically I shouldn't add a sponge air driven filter? Just an air line with coarse bubbles for surface agitation?
Vladimir Levachyov That is correct. Just a small trickle of coarse bubbles, without any mechanical filtration at all. 👍
WHERE CAN A GET DAPHNIA TO START MINE?
Hello Sir, i found a creature which is similar to one of the creature showcased in your this video...But i dont know actually WHAT IT IS ??? Please Help. Its Showcased at 4:54 - 4:55,, and can we feed them to fish.
The creature I showed is an adult brine shrimp, and they can definitely be fed to fish. If you found yours in freshwater, it is probably a fairy shrimp, also a good food for fish. 👍
Aquarimax Pets I found it in a Pond on a hill....What if i raise them at home and then feed to Fishes ?
I can mail you the video or pucture of the creature...Would be helpful if we identify it correctly.
MotoRap if you can get them to reproduce, it’s a great idea! They make excellent fish food.
MotoRap sure, let’s try it! You can find my email on my ABOUT tab.
What are the different types of daphnia and what are the pros and cons?
Kevin Leong Great question! There are many genera and species of cladocerans (as you may know, Daphnia is a genus name that is also used as a common name for all cladocerans.), I have only kept a few of them-perhaps 6 to 10 different types. In my experience they vary mostly in size, the density at which they can be cultured, and hardiness. Moina, for example, can be cultured at very high densities. Daphnia magna are the largest of those commonly cultured. I once cultured a strain that was very, very small, only a little bigger than brine shrimp nauplii. The strain I have now is very hardy, withstanding a wide range of water conditions. I hope that helps, 👍
What is the type you have now called again? Thank you I love your videos.
Kevin Leong Thanks Kevin! Mine were sold as Russian Red Daphnia, but I suspect they are Daphnia magna. 😊👍
Just in curiosity why did you decide to get Russian Red Daphnia? Instead of the common Daphnia Magna?
Kevin Leong they were available from a local aquarist, and he described them as really hardy, so I decided to give them a try. 👍
I use almond leaves in my betta tanks. Will this be a problem for daphnia if I use the 'old water' removed in water changes for daphnia cultures?
It depends on the mineral content of the water, and also if there are any hydra hiding out in your betta tanks. If your water has some natural mineral content it should work.
Hello I can't seem to find Green Pea Flour I saw in one of your videos where you have the daphnia in a jar and you have a mix of Spirulina Powder, Brown Rice Flour, and Pea/Garbanzo Flour for food but in this one you use the same things but add wheat flour, and Green Pea Flour for a food source other than the two added is both safe to use or any different from the other? Other than just adding two other ingredients? I'm about or order some daphnia to feed to my baby Axolotls and want to get a good system going before my axolotls hatch
Ashley Green I notice the best results when I mix spirulina with several flours, but garbanzo flour is fine instead of green pea powder if you are unable to find it. However, if you do a search for “pea protein powder” you should find some.
If say were freshwater fish in that tank would that flour harm or even benefit the fish in any way?
Fish in with the daphnia? Well, the daphnia wouldn’t last very long, but the water quality in a daphnia I tank isn’t necessarily the best suited to fish.
@@Aquarimax Couldnt they coexist in a tank somehow? Say it was one small fish that could never eat alll of the daphnia so they could keep reproducing and the fish would still be able to eat some daphnias everyday no worries... OR I could culture the daphnia in a semi closed area inside the tank like a cave of sorts that the fish couldnt enter but the dapnia could get out from time to time... how about it? :)
Hello again, in regards to the flours is there anything else I could put in a food ? Thanks
Paul Boyle With the scuds in the culture to break down larger food items into small particles, you can theoretically rely on pieces of vegetables and fish food. As far as flours, almost any grain or bean flour can work in the combo, variety is good, the spirulina boosts production, but is not 100% needed.
I’m thinking of culturing them for my newts do you think a sponge filter would work for aeration
A sponge filter might work, but a fresh one might also take too much of their food out of the water.
How do you culture copepods? Are they parasitic or harmful to fry? I can’t find any guides on culturing freshwater copepods.
Kyle Spotted Bear I have heard that they will sometimes gang up on very tiny fry if they are in large numbers. I have kept copepods in small numbers in my aquaria and incidentally with other cultures, such as daphnia, but never cultured them by themselves. One of my subscribers, Dr. Spud, has done so, and says that he keeps them just like Daphnia, and that they are very prolific when kept alone.
Aquarimax Pets do you have a link to his channel? Also thanks for the amphipod culture video! I just started my own a few days ago and they’re doing fine
Kyle Spotted Bear here is a link to one of his videos so you can contact him: ua-cam.com/video/Et6aDoTPbBE/v-deo.html. .
Glad to hear my amphipods video has been helpful! 😊👍
Hi, great video. I have a question, I have many aquarium from which to take water for daphnia water changes. However, all my large aquariums contain fancy goldfish, this means that the nitrates can be quite high, ie 40-60 ppm. Is nitrate a problem for daphnia?
Denise Pollitt Not necessarily, especially if you have some suspended algae growing in there, the algae will love the nitrates, and the daphnia will love the algae.
@@Aquarimax. Thank you!
Wonderful, helpful informative video. I'd like to start culturing daphnia for my schoutedeni puffers. Can I buy a starter culture from you? I live in the midwest USA
Aub_K Thank you, and you cerrtainly can! Please contact me for details here: www.aquarimax.com/contact/