Feeding;
This became an obsession for me at one stage. Trying to find the magic potion that
would act as a catalyst to maintaining a thick dark green soup on which I was to feed
the Daphnia. After many months of searching, trialling various plant food products
and being subjected to failure after failure I wondered if a nutrient enriched food
primarily for feeding algae for marine copepod cultivation would work in a freshwater environment. The results were astounding. The product in question was an enhanced version of Guillard's F/2 medium.
(i)Guillard's F/2 medium. (ii)This image shows two forms of Green Water, the
bottle on the left is algae cultured outside whilst the bottle on the right is home
artificially cultured algae.
This formulation is now administered at 2ml to 1.5 litres of rainwater. With heavy
turbid water and intense lighting the algae will be ready to harvest in around 4 days.
After this time lapse I drain of only half of the algae into a well cleaned 2ltr plastic
milk carton. I then replenish the original culture vessels with fresh water and add the
appropriate amount of food.