What to feed live Daphnia?????

[fishfanatic33]

I got this culture of Daphnia off Ebay and it said to feed them green water (algae bloom),but I tried to grow some by leaving a fluoresant light (life-glo) on 24 hours over some old aquaruium water but it didn't work. Some sources say to feed yeast (whole or dissolved?) and others say to feed blended greens. Also they say that culture should reproduce extremly quickly; mine hasn't even grown enough to feed my fish without wiping out the entire population. Can anybody help????

[Algenco]

sprinkle a little yeast on the surface, within a day or two the water should be cloudy

[Dave66]

First, you need your culture in a sunny window. Second, you need dried lettace (romaine is best) crumbled and sunk at the bottom, Third you need this: http://aquaticeco.resultspage.com/aqua/F%202
Fourth you need an algae scraping to seed the culture or one from a biological supply house.
Culturing green water isn't rocket science by any means. I culture gallons and gallons of it to feed my filter feeders, including Daphnia.
By the way, though they do eat yeast, the binders that keep the yeast from sticking to each other in the package collects into a gooey mess at the bottom of your culture jar (don't ask how I know this).

Dave

[fishfanatic33]

Man,sorry guys you must have thought I abandoned the thread Lol.
School has kept me SUPER busy. Ok I went to your page but there were a bunch of different items. Did you mean the first item on the page? And, Boy is that stuff expensive!!! It better last awhile Lol. Also I dont have a sunny window. When you mean an algae scraping do you mean like the algae on my fluorescent lamp glass.And lastly( I love to ask questions Lol) how big of a container do you keep them in. Right now they (about 20 (a bunch died) are in a Tuperware on my windowsill. I was keeping them outside in a 25 gallon tub.

[Dave66]

Man,sorry guys you must have thought I abandoned the thread Lol.
School has kept me SUPER busy. Ok I went to your page but there were a bunch of different items. Did you mean the first item on the page? And, Boy is that stuff expensive!!! It better last awhile Lol. Also I dont have a sunny window. When you mean an algae scraping do you mean like the algae on my fluorescent lamp glass.And lastly( I love to ask questions Lol) how big of a container do you keep them in. Right now they (about 20 (a bunch died) are in a Tuperware on my windowsill. I was keeping them outside in a 25 gallon tub.

I use five gallon carboys to culture the algae I feed my Daphnia. Go here: http://www.lfscultures.com/kits.html for alternative foods and an easy algae culture kit. I'm afraid you aren't going to get a rich algae culture without the Guillard's, and that 22-dollar Kent Liquid lasts quite a while if you do a small (under 100 gallon) Daphnia culture. That live food site is where I get the majority of my cultures.
Both Daphnia pulex and D. magna are in 437 gallon fiberglass tubs I bought from the site I sent you to. With my Gullard's rich algae water, those vats are full of millions of Daphnia. They do reproduce quite quickly when properly fed, meaning their water needs to be green all day. I use a drip feed to keep the algae count high. Daphnia need to be kept at 75 degrees, so if you've a cool basement, that'd be a good place to have your culture(s).
Oh, and this book: http://www.amazon.com/Plankton-Culture-Manual-Frank-Hoff/dp/0966296044/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198660371&sr=8-1
Will tell you all you need to know about culturing all kinds of things, including Daphnia. Its the bible of culturing.

Dave