You never know what you'll find.....

[BallAquatics]

I'm out working on the daphnia cultures and what do I find - a fish in one of the tanks!!!!!  He looks pretty happy too   

Dennis

[LizStreithorst]

I'd be happy too if I were a fish and found mysyel in that situation.

[Jdmcfast]

how hard is it to do a Daphnia culture?

[Mugwump]

LOL...what a nice surprise.....

[Mugwump]

oh...can you identify it yet??.....

[BallAquatics]

how hard is it to do a Daphnia culture?

I find daphnia very easy, (monia I'm still trying to master).  It pays to have more than one culture going at any given time.  Here's a great article on culturing daphnia --->  http://www.aka.org/wako/DaphniaCultureMadeSimple.htm.

Dennis

[BallAquatics]

oh...can you identify it yet??.....

It's got to be a Pearl or Panther Danio fry.  Got some 2 shelves up growing out...

Dennis

[LizStreithorst]

How do you figure the lucky fish found it's way into the cluture?

[BallAquatics]

It must have jumped.  The daphnia tanks stick out from the bottom shelf so any kamikaze from the tanks above would probably drop right in.  I was moving around some plants over the weekend and probably spooked it...

Dennis

[LizStreithorst]

I hope that it truns out to be a fish worthy of breeding.  Is it larger than it's tank mates because it had such a good feed for we don't know how long?

[BallAquatics]

No, fortunately it's too small to eat the larger daphnia.  It's only been in there less than 24 hours.  I would have seen it yesterday when inspecting the cultures.

Dennis

[LizStreithorst]

I clicked on the link.  Unforutnatly for me, daphnia thrive in a small temperture range.  In winter, I don't heat the  the house unless it drops below 50 or I want to give myself a treat.  I keep the fish room at 80.  The heaters in the tanks boost the Discus up another two or three degrees.

I know that they are a great food.  I wish I could raise them, but I can't.

[BallAquatics]

My biggest problem is keeping them cool enough in the summer.  I used to keep them in Sterilite containers on the floor under the racks, but it's a bear doing water changes with something that's on the floor.   

Dennis

[Mugwump]

Nice vid..here's an article

http://genome.jgi-psf.org/Dappu1/Dappu1.home.html

[BallAquatics]

Nice vid..here's an article

http://genome.jgi-psf.org/Dappu1/Dappu1.home.html

These guys say they raise theirs with temps ranging from 72F to 85F.

http://www.discushatchery.com/raisingdaphnia.html

Dennis