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I feed the Daphnia as follows: mix one package of dry active yeast with one cup
of soy flour. (Kroger carries the soy flour). Once or twice a day I stir 1/4 teaspoon of this dry mixture into a cup of warm water. I pour this into the Daphnia
tank, which clouds the water. When the Daphnia have made the water clear
again by filtering out all the food, it is time to feed them again. Overfeeding will
cause a crash. Crash = all dead. Experience will teach you how much to feed. I
also keep some large ram horn snails in the tank which I feed a lettuce leaf once
or twice a week. The snails produce infusoria, which is more food for the Daphnia. If you must be gone for a few days, just throw in a couple of lettuce leaves
and the bugs won't starve while you are gone. The snails are also a good indicator of water quality. When water quality is really bad (a crash is at hand) all the
snails will go to the top of the tank. With heavy feeding it doesn't take long for
nitrates to reach a lethal level, but this can be prevented by proper harvesting.
Never harvest by just netting out the Daphnia. Instead, siphon them into a
bucket through a shrimp net, refilling the tank with clean water. The quantity of
water to remove depends on the size of your Daphnia tank. Also, about every 10
days the mulm should be siphoned from the bottom of the tank. If you don't it will
soon be crash time again.
You can size the Daphnia by pouring through different size fish nets, thus separating the smaller food for your smaller fishes. One advantage of Daphnia is that
they will remain alive until eaten instead of polluting your tank.
Belonging to an active fish club is almost a requirement for year round feeding of
Daphnia. Why? Because when you get lazy/stupid and crash your Daphnia culture you can ask a member to bring you a new start to the next meeting. Thank
you Tom, Greg, Charley and others! Keeping two tanks going is another good
idea.
For lots of information on numerous live foods, refer to Charley Grimes' chapter
in the book ENJOYING CICHLIDS. This is a great book!
This article may be copied and distributed at will as long as you give credit to the
author and send me a copy of any publication that uses it.
May your friendships and fishes remain healthy and multiply.
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