Keeping Daphnia And Blood Worm?

[chrisrutter]

Hi all

I've been thinking about keeping daphnia / blood worm to feed my fish, Im fed up of buying live foods (blood worm and daphnia) for a £1 a bag for what is effectively dead lol.

I keep malawi cichlids and they love frozen bloodworm as well as another frozen mix which has daphnia in it, so i know its not bad for them, but does anyone have any experience of keeping them to feed?

I've got a 2 foot tank which is going spare and a shed so i was thinking of sticking some in there with an airstone and letting them get on with it? I've heard that rain water is the best to keep them in with a black bag around it to keep the sun out.

Any help would be good.

Cheers all!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

dunno about bloodworms but you can set up breeding tanks for brine shrimp and daphnia fairly easily to have a ready made supply of fresh food....... i can't remember exactly how to do it which isn't much help, but it can definatley be done!!

 

[chrisrutter]

haha yeah i remember we used to do it in a zoo i used to work in.
We had long long tubes about 4" wide, with a airstone at the bottom. Just wondering if anyone has done it with a larger tank?

 

[chrisrutter]

Hummm just read something saying to never feed bloodworm to Mbuna's so thats off their menu from now on.
Is daphnia is ok though? its actually in a feed block that is sold as a Malawi Mix? So i would have thought it would be ok?

 

[Corleone]

Daphnia's really easy to raise. I grow greenwater to feed them in a tank that gets direct sunlight with the lights on 24/7. I add aquarium plant fertilizer to it as if it were a planted tank, eventually you should get an algae bloom. I got the initial stock of daphnia by ordering from Caroline Biological Supply (the LFS here only carry blackworm as live food). The daphnia themselves are in a 10 gallon with a cheap sponge filter.

My first attempt screwed up. I'm not sure how they did it, but daphnia can cross a room. Keep the two tanks in different rooms, or you may come in one day and find you have two tanks of daphnia and no tanks of greenwater. I've heard of keeping a small goldfish or minnows in the greenwater tank to eat any daphnia that get in it.

 

[acula]

I bought some freeze dried Bloodworms for my Betta, i couldnt belive how expensive it was.... just shy of £10 a pot!!!

 

[BigC]

Daphnia you can certainly culture outsice in large waterbutts,
http/www.caudata.org/daphnia/#cult1
Bloodworm is a different matter as they are a larval stage of a midge (Chironomus sp.)
. You can however, like me, culture certain kind of midge larvae, by broviding a 25 ltr plastic drums filled with water and a good handful of horse manure. The midge will breed and lay eggs in the water and the resulting larvae will grow. to harvest in the warmer months take a fine mesh net and slowly approach the water container. If you make to much commotion the larvae will dive to the substrate rendering it impossible to collect. If approached correctly the larvae will be at the surface or just below. quickly swipe your net in the proximity where there is an abundance of larvae. Rinse with tap water and feed to the fish.
Regards
BigC