So, just a quick update.
I have 4 established cultures of daphnia and have had three or four small harvests. The harvests were large enough to make a treat for my fish, but not sufficient for regular feeding. As stated above, the cultures are in:
- a jar of pothos cuttings
- three tubs of floaters
The cultures in oldest (or greenest) tubs/jars are doing best, but I haven't quite yet got a workable system for harvesting.
[At the moment, I have been concentrating on setting up a production line to produce small quantities of brine shrimp for my dwarf puffers 😎]
The main problem with harvesting is that I don't want to unduly disturb the cuttings nor floaters. At the moment, I have been experimenting with using a pipette and 30 or 40cm of airline tubing to improvise a siphon. The main advantage to this would be that I can clean all the gunk [minus the snails] and harvest the daphnia at the same time.
I tried using the "Hobby Artemis Breeder" to separate out the daphnia from the gunk. This works, but the gadget is now being put to better use as a holding tank for the days' de-husked harvest of brine shrimp. Among other things, I am going to get a third
cheap 'titration column' type brine shrimp hatchery. Used as a dedicated titration column, this will not only speed up the daily chore of brine shrimp production, but, after having watched the daphnia, I think that this will be a better solution to exploit the phototactic effect than the "Hobby" device.
In conclusion, I am impressed enough that I am ordering a large tiered plant shelf to fit on my kitchen table by the window. While I will undoubtedly put other light loving plants there, the main purpose of the shelf unit will be to hold the tubs of floater, and their daphnia symbiotes.
Oh, before I forget: I haven't really been feeding them. Since I started this experiment, I have only given them two small squirts of yeast. My main reason for doing so was because the tub of frogbit was new and had not really had a chance to develop algae. Now, a couple of weeks in, that is less of an issue.