Building a better tank algae / biofilm... as best to mimic "Aufwuchs"

so I have a culture of scuds going, & looking at culturing Daphnia, or Copods, in an attempt to be able to add some live critters to the heavy biofilm / algae I'm trying to grow in some of my tanks, containing fish known to be aufwuchs eaters ... I run heavy lighting, & longer hours than normal on those tanks, that have fish that are known aufwuchs eaters... thinking just plain / sterile, tank grown algae my not offer enough nutrition long term for some fish, like Hillstream Loaches, Oto's, & some Plecos... I'm currently adding Bacter AE to these tanks, & that seems to be helping in building a good base, but the difference between Algae, & aufwuchs, is the addition of micro critters living in the aufwuchs, that are not in the typical algae in our tanks...
I've been supplementing Rapashi Soilient Green, which is supposed to mimic aufwuchs

I'm pretty much getting there, minus the living critters... I recently added a couple Giant Oto's to this tank, & assume they are going to need "more" for sustained nutrition...
note the nasty looking stuff I've got growing on this drift wood, & it took a few days for this Giant to find it... but it seems to relish it...

so what types of critters can I culture, to add to tanks, that will hang out out in this heavy bio film, & make it more "aufwuchs like"

I'm guessing the daphnia, while the right size, probably won't be a good aufwuchs building block, as they are a surface critter... so I'm really looking for something that will move into the buildup on the surfaces of the tank...

Magnum Man said:

so I have a culture of scuds going, & looking at culturing Daphnia, in an attempt to be able to add some live critters to the heavy biofilm / algae I'm tryi9ng to grow in some tanks... I run heavy lighting, & longer hours than normal on some tanks, that have fish that are known aufwuchs eaters... thinking just plain / sterile, tank grown algae my not offer enough nutrition long term for some fish, like Hillstream Loaches, Oto's, & some Plecos... I'm currently adding Bacter AE to these tanks, & that seems to be building a good base, but the difference between Algae, & aufwuchs, is the addition of micro critters living in the aufwuchs, that are not in the typical algae in our tanks...
I've been supplementing Rapashi Soilient Green, which is supposed to mimic aufwuchs

I'm pretty much getting there, minus the living critters... I recently added a couple Giant Oto's to this tank, & assume they are going to need "more" for sustained nutrition...
note the nasty looking stuff I've got growing on this drift wood, & it took a few days for this Giant to find it... but it seems to relish it...

so what types of critters can I culture, to add to tanks, that will hang out out this heavy bio film, & make it more "aufwuchs like"
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I can't help you much as I am learning too, but you are wise to get prepared IMO. I was at a local fish swap yesterday and there was a dealer selling cultures. He basically scared me away from a daphnia sale, but at least he was honest. I will catch him next swap. I was just not ready enough, and going on vacation in a month, so a bad time to start murdering daphnia until July.

I'm wondering if I can introduce freshwater Copods into the few tanks I'm trying to grown aufwuchs in???

I am looking at Harpacticoid copepods right now, as I think they would stay in the bio film better, but the ones I'm seeing for sale seem to indicate they are for Salt Water tanks... I've got an e-question into one of the sellers, to see if I can get some specific information, & or some recommendation's...

BTW... the seller I contacted only does salt water Copods, & didn't offer any recommendation's for a freshwater supplier...

Copepods and Ostracod are both biofilm consumers.

I would raise them in a specific tank, then take a piece of wood filled of algae and biofilm put it in the pod / cod tank, wait until it fills with them then move it to the fish that eats it...

The reason for this. If you raise your pod / cod in the same tank they will multiply to the point of depleting everything. They even eat brown algae if there's nothing else.

Some pics of the seed shrimps in my cycling tank.

They are literally cleaning everything. And are surviving any level of ammonia and nitrite without problems and in opposites of snails, they keep the glass completely clean.

This is the top part of the mopany piece of wood that grows the most algae. And after a couple weeks it looks pressure washed.

I bait them with boiled cucumber and trow them in my betta tank. after multiple tryout to seed the betta tank with them it doesn't succeed because the betta eats all of them in a couple days. Loll.

This looks like a hive of bees.

Zebra seed shrimps. Omnivorious. Resilient... All they really need is a little mountain of rough gravel so the fish cannot eat them all at once and a little overfeeding at the right place.

At the moment they pose a serious threat on anything else in the tank.

But their population will have a ELE when I'm going to plant. And further more when the fishes arise.

Most of my tanks have lots of cover I think these would be better than daphnia as far as building a tank Aufwuchs, as the daphnia are surface critters

The tank with the giants has 2 - 36 inch, 36 watt led lights over it for long hours… the tank with the Hillstream’s, only has 1 - 48 inch, 45 watt led… with so many Hillstream’s in that tank, I’m not getting ahead on algae / biofilm, so I’ll likely add a 2nd light to that tank as well

Magnum Man said:

I'm wondering if I can introduce freshwater Copods into the few tanks I'm trying to grown aufwuchs in???

I am looking at Harpacticoid copepods right now, as I think they would stay in the bio film better, but the ones I'm seeing for sale seem to indicate they are for Salt Water tanks... I've got an e-question into one of the sellers, to see if I can get some specific information, & or some recommendation's...

Click to expand...

There are plenty of freshwater harpacticoids, although I'm not sure how many of them are cultured for sale within the hobby. I'll be honest with you, if it were me, I'd just go down to a local pond or stream and harvest copepods for a starter culture myself. If you have access to a cheap microscope and some sort of small suction device (pipette, syringe, etc.), you could even pick out the specific types of animals you want. The harpacticoids are easy to recognize by their short, stubby antennae compared to calanoid copepods.

But I think your intuition is right—the harpacticoids would probably be better for a biofilm community. MaloK is correct in saying that they do eat the biofilm themselves, so you'd have to be careful to not let the population get out of hand. But harpacticoid copepods in particular tend to be smaller and, in my experience with the saltwater ones, they also tend to hug the walls of containers more than other copepods, so they'd most likely be living amongst whatever biofilm you have growing.

so far I have found only these listings of Freshwater Copods... anyone tried these???

thought I'd share this, that I came across on Copod's in the aquarium ( I'm not typically a huge fan of articles like this, as I often find them littered with misinformation... but since I literally know nothing, I found it as good base info... if anyone sees any gross errors, please point them out, as I don't know enough right now to point them out )