Make and Grow Your Own Tropical Fish Foods by Sutcliffe Gary C

Author:Sutcliffe, Gary C.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Livestock tanks can be used to raise Daphnia outdoors. They should be emptied and inverted before freezing weather arrives.

The next step is to wait until the population increases. This will take a couple of weeks in favorable conditions. Harvest them with a fish net. Use one with reasonably coarse mesh so that you are collecting only adults. Juveniles will pass through the openings and have a chance to grow up. Of course, if you want to feed small fish, a finer net can be used.

Daphnia tend to go deeper in the day and come to the surface during the cooler parts of the day and at night. Keep that in mind if your water is not clear and you can’t see them while harvesting.

The culture will go through cycles of low populations to blooms where the water looks like it shimmers. The Daphnia will take on a red coloration then. They are producing hemoglobin to compensate for low oxygen levels. When the population is small, the Daphnia will usually be almost transparent or have a slight green tinge.

It is essential to harvest Daphnia when there is a good bloom. They will quickly deplete the resources, and the culture will crash until conditions improve. Fortunately, unlike most live food cultures that go bad and result in a stinking mess that must be discarded, the Daphnia raised outdoors will return when conditions improve, especially if the container is large. The author has had cultures go for 6 or 7 years until the wading pool developed leaks and needed replacement.

You can store excess Daphnia in the refrigerator for up to a few days. Put them in a dish with a large surface area. Large surpluses can be put in ice cube trays and frozen for future use. The frozen cubes should be double bagged in the freezer to prevent them from drying out.

The boom or bust cycle of outdoor Daphnia cultures can be evened out somewhat by supplemental feedings. A 5-gallon bucket of green water raised separately provides a regular source. About once a week 2/3 of the bucket can be added to the Daphnia pool. The chapter on green water describes growing green water outdoors. You can also use powder foods for supplemental feedings.

Outdoor cultures do not need a lot of additional maintenance. Remove leaves that fall into the water as they will acidify the water and make harvesting more difficult. Do a partial water change if the water takes on a brown tinge from leaves falling in. Add water to replace what is lost to evaporation.

Over time a layer of muck will form on the bottom. It is not a problem except that some of it will end up in your net while harvesting. If you have a Daphnia pool that is left out year round, you might want to scoop out some of the muck once a year in late spring or early summer to keep the layer from getting too thick.

Winter weather will end the outdoor season as the pools freeze.

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