Starting a Daphnia culture

Hi guys, I'd like to get a daphnia culture going but am not sure where to get the daphnia eggs from. I am in Cape Town and am going to check if Sam's stocks it but if not do you know where I could be able to get it from? It has to be live - I can't go with frozen daphnia. Does anyone here have a colony that I could get some from? I'd be willing to pay you!

 

@Reedfish - any ideas as to where I could get the adults? I kind of need them by tuesday or thereabouts, lol. Something came up X3

 

Anybody?

 

Pm me, it sound like you are in the Southern Sub's...

 

@Reedfish - I phoned my local LFS and they said they had it for R22 and could get me sorted with all of the stuff I will need to get the culture started. So I went all the way down there only to be told that they don't, in fact, have it. God, this kind of incompetence drives me crazy. I ended up buying some brine shrimp eggs, but would still like to get the daphnia.

 

I heard that soaking chicken manure in water over some time would grow daphnia. Apparently eggs can live in chicken poo? Maybe try that?

 

@Firefly - thanks, but I think I'll pass on that Also surely that would risk diseases being introduced to the aquarium?

 

And if youre a city slicker means have a bucket of watered poop hehe cant smell to awesome

 

@Ryno - yes I live in an apartment XD I already have the cat's litterbox to worry about...

 

Hehe, was just an idea...

 

@Reedfish - when I started keeping tropicals when I was about 8-10 years old, I used to go wading about the dam by our house with a net, catching platannas and tilapia. I used to catch lots of little water bugs and what I am pretty sure were daphnia in the process, and I used to feed those to the fish, live. If I had a lot sometimes I would pour them and the water into ice trays and freeze them, then drop a block in the tank and watch the fish happily munching away. Nowadays, I can't believe I was foolish enough to do something like that (that dam was none too clean!), and I'm not surprised that none of my fish lived very long back then (but I also didn't take very good care of them - what with keeping up with water changes etc)! But my point is, surely the type of water that would be rich in single-celled algae, would have a good chance of containing diseases/parasites?

 

Hi Guys,

What works well is green water. Also best to feed them on is Horse manure and its pretty safe from a disease point of view or brewers yeast. Also to get the colony started its better to get a culture from the lfs and they will breed on their own and quite rapidly if fed well.

 

Try to get a few live from a forum member, i got about 5 two weeks ago, fed them only twice so far with yeast and I literally have hundreds now

 

@wade - yeah, that's what I would like to do but it doesn't seem that anyone near me has any D: Also what on earth are you doing awake? Up early for work? I should seriously stop going to bed when the rest of the world gets up x.x

 

Haha...i'm working the graveyard shift this week:cheesy:...so i have no choice but to be awake.