Daphnia: Feeding The Stuff That Passes The Net

[dilbert]

Hi all,

I am buying weekly from my LFS bags of daphnia with a pink nutritional liquid.

I pass the content of the bags through a fine-meshed net and use the daphnia in the net for feeding.

Now, I was wondering if someone feeds the small stuff that passes the net, too. I have a few small invertebrate-only tanks with tree corals and the like that could probably benefit from very small daphnia from time to time.

First question: I presume that the pink nutritional liquid shouldn't be pourred into the tank.

Second question: How do you filter then the small stuff? Coffee filters or the like?

Third question: Anyone had any other problems like diseases or so?

 

[Anguilla82]

i've not used daphnia personally, (bit of a stigma about using freshwater invertebrates to feed saltwater critters, same with bloodworm) but anyway, i would imaging that the liquid probably contains quite a bit of phosphates, nitrates (maybe even some ammonia from dead daphnia), so putting this into a saltwater tank could be trouble.

if you do wanna try and collect the tiny particles (be they tiny daphnia or whatever) then yes imagine a coffee filter would do the job perfectly.

Lastly i don't personally know of anyone who has had problems with introducing a disease through live food. As long as your LFS is a reputable dealer and the stuff is fresh there shouldn't be an issue.

can i ask why your feeding live daphnia? if its live food you need you could always try culturing your own pods etc.... (that way you know where they are coming from)

 

[dilbert]

I am feeding only at weekends live brine shrimps, daphnia and bloodworms to our platys who live in a brackish water tank.

A small fraction of that live food goes to the marine tanks. A clownfish and a blue damsel eat mostly brine shrimps and daphnia and the cleaner shrimps mostly bloodworms.

Surely, for the invertebrate tanks, it would be freshwater plankton for marine creatures. It's one tank with tree corals and tiny tubeworms that receives very sparsely any food and another tank with Caulastrea, a small tubeworm, and tiny anemones. All creatures in those tanks live longer than a year in there, so there is no need to boost feeding for filter feeders.

I just thought, it would be a handy treat. Instead of throwing it away, I could use it from time to time.