cycling with live daphnia??

[appleblossom]

I went into my lfs today to get some plants and bought a bag of live daphnia as a treat for my rams, I am in this shop all the time and me and the owner usually have a chat, so he went on to tell me that I could cycle a tank using live daphnia instead of fish.

He reckoned that if I added about 10 bags of them to a 10g tank it would be enough to cycle and the daphnia would stay alive through the process and be food for the fish when they get added at the end.

Anyone heard of this before? Does is sound plausible to you guys??

 

[clutterydrawer]

I have no idea, but I'd be very interested if you'd try it and find out! But surely they'd have to be fed throughout the cycle if they were to produce waste to feed teh bacteria? what do daphnia eat?

 

[appleblossom]

hmm no idea...maybe algae...but I dont think there would be much algae in a new tank, maybe really teensy amounts of liquifry or crushed flakes??

 

[bunjiweb]

You could easily feed them on liquifry or very finely crushed flake. I think this has very high potential to work and i'd be interested to see the outcome.

Ben

 

[SirMinion]

The trouble with daphnia is that they get caught in the filter and clog it.

When I feed daphnia to my lot I have to turn the filter off for five minutes until the daphnia's all eaten, otherwise I have to clean it out afterwards.

 

[cation]

What about pantyhose over the filter intake? Would that work?

 

[clutterydrawer]

^ that's what I was thinking...and if possible, turn the filter to its lowest setting. you gonna give it a go appleblossom? I think everyone would be interested to hear about the results.