# Culturing Daphnia and Copepods



## APCRandall (Feb 2, 2007)

I want to culture Daphnia and Copepods.. Is there a good web link somebody can show me, or info?
also a link for culturning freshwater microalgae.


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## John P. (Nov 24, 2004)

APCRandall said:


> I want to culture Daphnia and Copepods.. Is there a good web link somebody can show me, or info?
> also a link for culturning freshwater microalgae.


Daphnia and Moina are easy. Search the forums--there are a few good posts.

Essentially:
-larger containers are best, and least likely to crash an entire population
-use old aquarium water only
-dissolve enough #1 or #2 jar baby food peas, squash, or carrots to make the water slightly cloudy
-don't feed yeast unless you have to--it's much momre difficult to sustain a population than with baby food
-no need to heat or aerate Moina--they're my preference
-light encourages population growth, but too much heat is not good


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## Nevermore (Mar 26, 2007)

I've been culturing Daphnia magna in two 5 gallon tanks for about a year. I use 16 hours of light to grow the algae to feed them. I got my starter culture from dallasdiscus.com. If my culture overgrows my green water I use Roti-Rich to feed the daphnia until my green water rebounds.

Here are some links I used to get myself started:

http://www.caudata.org/daphnia/

http://aquamaniacs.net/forum/cms_view_article.php?aid=33

http://www.aquaculturestore.com/info/daphnia.html


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## fredyk (Jun 21, 2004)

here's an old link
http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/month.200309/msg00217.html


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

I've cultured daphnia a few times. Here's some things I've picked up.

1) Yeast never, ever works for me. It makes a godawful stringy mess.

2) Pureed vegetables never worked for me either.

3) Green water worked spectacularly well.

4) Have many tanks of them. They're a tad unpredictable and can crash when you least expect it. I found 7 two gallon tanks was about right for me. There was always one or two tanks with tons of them the rest were either crashing ot gearing up.

5) They don't like water changes.

6) There's a Russian strain of D. magna that is the best. It's pretty big.

7) Don't discouns Moina. Smaller, but somewhat easier to culture.


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## CThompson (Jul 23, 2007)

I've grown daphnia for years in outside 200 litre barrels. By far the easiest way to feed them is to break a banana in two, skin and all, and throw that in. Provides a good constant long lasting food source. Potatoes also work.

Have multiple containers as cultures can go through boom/bust cycles, so spread the risk.

Craig


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