Daphnia are small aquatic crustaceans that reach about 5mm in size, and are an excellent food source for aquatic pets, especially picky eaters! They are an excellent live food for freshwater tanks and will not pollute your tank’s water. The following lists the primary processes of how we maintain our Daphnia culture: ●Maintenance: ○Water Changes performed at least every other day replacing at least 50% of the water. ○Siphoning the bottom of tank or container that the Daphnia are living in as the food you feed them will collect down there. ○We use aged water rather than aquarium water (due to the possibility of bacteria in our aquariums that could spread to customers--if you don’t plan on selling, you can certainly use your own aquarium water). ■Note: do not use plain freshwater or freshwater that has been treated with Prime as this can kill the culture. ●Feeding: ○We feed them Brewer’s Yeast once a day. It’s time to feed them when the water is clear. If the water isn’t clearing in a couple of days at most, you are likely overfeeding them. ○We use a brine shrimp net to filter out the bigger particles of yeast when feeding (hold the net over the culture and pour the yeast mixture into it). ○Combine the yeast in a small container with aged water or aquarium water. Mix well. ■We don’t actually use a ratio of yeast to water, but will feed until we can no longer see the bottom of the Daphnia container. ■Start small and add more yeast as needed to meet the above specification. ●Additional Tips: ○Avoid having only one culture. It’s safer to maintain at least 2 in the event that the one crashes. It’s very common that cultures crash. ○More volume of water is better for the survival of the culture (we keep ours in 20+ gallon tanks and containers). ○Not necessary, but helpful: ■Lightly aerated water, in our experience, has promoted Daphnia reproduction.
