I bought a daphnia magna culture (the bigger daphnia, not d. moina that is normally frozen and sold in pet stores) a few months ago, thinking I had read enough on how to create a successful thriving colony to feed to my fish. I had read that I would need a container that could hold anywhere from 20-40g, I could either use a sponge filter or not, that I would only need to feed them small amounts of plant material, veggies, or spirulina powder 1-2 times a week, and do infrequent water top offs. I also read that snails in the setup were necessary; the snails would eat the leftover food that sank to the bottom, excrete their waste, and in turn their waste would be a food source for the daphnia.
I had an 18g rubbermaid bin with a lid that I put the daphnia in, and I sat the lid loosely over the bin so the daphnia would have "fresh" air. I kept the bin indoors at my place of work at the time which maintained a temp of 75, had no sponge filter, put tiny pieces of fresh cucmber/water from vases with live flowers once weekly, and had a smattering of pond snails in there to clean up uneaten food. My culture of 300 died within 2 weeks.
Can anyone give me a detailed set of directions on how to create a daphnia magna (not moina as their setup is supposedly different) colony, or show me links to some informative websites?
I had an 18g rubbermaid bin with a lid that I put the daphnia in, and I sat the lid loosely over the bin so the daphnia would have "fresh" air. I kept the bin indoors at my place of work at the time which maintained a temp of 75, had no sponge filter, put tiny pieces of fresh cucmber/water from vases with live flowers once weekly, and had a smattering of pond snails in there to clean up uneaten food. My culture of 300 died within 2 weeks.
Can anyone give me a detailed set of directions on how to create a daphnia magna (not moina as their setup is supposedly different) colony, or show me links to some informative websites?
