Feeding live daphnia - twice a day ok?

[davidjp1982]

I've started up a 10 gallon daphnia tank as a hopefully low maintenance alternative to brine shrimp hatching. I was wondering if two daily feedings of live daphnia would be ok for Cacatuoides? I've got a shoal of Neons that tear into the daphnia so each apisto probably ends up with maybe 5 at a time. Along with a daily flake / NLS pellet feed would this be ok? Or would my Neons explode as a result of greed?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I've got a shoal of Neons that tear into the daphnia so each apisto probably ends up with maybe 5 at a time. Along with a daily flake / NLS pellet feed would this be ok? Or would my Neons explode as a result of greed?

You will end up with some very pudgy Tetras. I usually add a lot of Daphnia in one go when I feed them, this means that all the fish get some.

This time of year I'm feeding Daphnia every day, and just topping this up with a very small pinch of Grindal worms and a few mosquito larvae. As the production of Daphnia slows I'll add in some Astax Red crumb and "Freeze Dried Artic Copepods" (both from "TA Aquaculture"), and in the winter I'll feed some Earthworm/Spirulina flake and Red Worms as well. I usually get a trickle of Daphnia, Cyclops and Ostracods from the water butts even in the winter.

cheers Darrel

 

[davidjp1982]

I was thinking of maybe switching to 2 daily daphnia feedings and NLS / flake on alternate days. That all depends on if I can keep the culture going as it's my first attempt.

 

[davidjp1982]

I actually gave my corydoras away to a friend today as they were getting roughed up by my male Cac, and in a moment of clarity I gave him the neons too - so now my cacatuoides pair have the 64 litres to themselves

 

[gerald]

To me, the most important thing with live food cultures, especially Daphnia, is to have multiple containers, and spread them around to as many local friends as you can. Some of the cultures will crash and die for no apparent reason (or obvious reason, like neglect) and you'll want to have other containers available to restart the crashed ones. (Actually, the same principle applies to Apistos).

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

To me, the most important thing with live food cultures, especially Daphnia, is to have multiple containers, and spread them around to as many local friends as you can.

Words of wisdom, but I've found my Daphnia cultures are a lot less prone to "boom and bust" since I started adding some dead grass.

I got this technique from <http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...ation-daphnia-cultures-alternate-feeding.html>.

cheers Darrel

 

[davidjp1982]

Thanks for the tips and I will look into using some grass in the tank. Back to my original question I was just wondering about the frequency of feeding daphnia to my fish and also quantity for each feed as the tank now only has a pair of cacatuoides I can control the amount fed much more easily

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Back to my original question I was just wondering about the frequency of feeding daphnia to my fish and also quantity for each feed as the tank now only has a pair of cacatuoides I can control the amount fed much more easily

You can add them when you like, you can't really over-feed them now, the great thing about Daphnia is they just swim around until the fish eat them.

cheers Darrel

 

[davidjp1982]

Great thanks