• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Feeding live Daphnia

BarryH

Member
Joined
25 Feb 2017
Messages
608
Location
Derbyshire
Apologies for the dumb question but can anyone please advise how I should be feeding live Daphnia to the fish in my tanks?

My local store should have some in tomorrow and I'm told they are in 100ml sachets? Not sure if I strain them through a net or put the contents of the sachet into the tank. As I mainly keep shrimp, the Daphnia is for some Cardinal Tetras that I also hope to collect tomorrow and the Harlequins I already have.
 
I've always dumped the whole sachet into the tank with no adverse effects. Not saying I know for a fact that its safe, just that this is what I have done in all of my tanks. :)
 
Two options:
1. Just dump them in, ideally the day before a water change as the water they come in is a little gross. It's probs fine, but it smells bad.
2. Strain them using a very fine net, or a paper coffee filter. Paper coffee filter works really well, I use it for draining brine shrimp too.
 
If the water in the bag is good enough to keep Daphnia alive in it then it’s totally fine for your tank if you dump it all in, Daphnia are a BioAsssy marker for water quality after all and if they’re live and swimming in the bag then the water quality is optimal. If they’re all dead in the bag then it’s not optimal and you will likely be adding a small supplemental dose of ammonia to the tank if you add this water, so to prevent this I sieve them out the water at this stage (certainly not adding either if they are putrid).

:)
 
Or a third option ~ cut the top off the sachet and carefully remove as much of the liquid as you can without losing any brine shrimp, daphnia or bloodworm, then re fill the sachet with water shake and decant again. This will remove a good bit of the water they were in and help get rid of any particals that can sometimes be in the liquid.
 
Cut off the top and chuck them in, its what I do. As all the cyclops that comes with it is added to the tank as well.
If you want to strain them and not spend the money on a BBS strainer. You can get one of the Tea strainers from any of the Indian Warehouse stores or ebay. The Plastic Sieves are better than the metal ones.
Tea strainer
 
Back
Top