[Suggestions (including salt?) to prevent blackworm culture crashes?]

On 3/27/2023 at 6:07 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

Oh no, those are @modified lung's towers.  Not mine.  That was an ingenious system.  Can't be mine!  I just do mine in gravel in a sterlite container, with a sponge filter.

I ended up combining sterilite and a couple variations on @modified lung’s towers:  one is part of a HOB inlet pre filter and the other is two nested hydroponic planters with gravel in between.  So far they seem to prefer the nested pots, but it’s only been 3 hours.

I also put some in with my scuds and bladder snails.

We’ll see how it goes!

[What are these critters?]

I got some better pictures.  I put a microscope slide in the aquarium for a couple weeks so I could look at one without scraping it off the glass.  It looks like the the things on the glass are eggs.  You can see the embryo moving in the gif.  But eggs of what?

I also found an adult something.  I'm not sure if they are related.

 

[Suggestions (including salt?) to prevent blackworm culture crashes?]

On 3/26/2023 at 2:16 PM, memorywrangler said:

Has anyone tried treating black worms with salt?

I did some experiments last night with a 0.6% salt solution. I left them in for 5, 10, and 20 minutes, rinse them in freshwater and let them sit overnight. In the morning everyone is still alive so I’m treating the whole batch with a 0.6% salt solution for 20 minutes.

I don’t know how I’m ever gonna tell if this was successful 🙂

[Is this peacock gudgeon a mature male?]

Is that a nuchal hump on this fish?

This is my first group of peacocks Gudgeons.  I bought them as fry, and I’m not sure how tell when they are mature.

[Suggestions (including salt?) to prevent blackworm culture crashes?]

I got them at my LFS.  I think they get them from here: https://aquaticfoods.com/BlackwormCareM.html, but I'm not certain and they say they are out of stock.  They have been out of stock at all the LFSs here in San Diego for several months.

My old setup was  plastic shoe-box container from home depot, with an overflow.  I had a tiny sponge filter, some guppy grass, and some cubes of coarse sponge filter material that the worms seem to like.

I dumped a quart of dechloronated water in each morning, and it would overflow into a bucket.

I fed them some leftover shrimp food I had around every few days.  

I'm not sure they grew that much, but they lived a long time until...they didn't (crash).

My new plan is to co-culture them with scuds and bladder snails in a 5 gallon.

 

 

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

The ammonia is all gone -- it went faster than I expected.

How much higher can I safely go with ammonia, do you think?  Is more K and P ok too?  It'd be nice to not have to feed the green water that often.

 

On 3/19/2023 at 4:02 PM, modified lung said:

Ammonia is fine. You can go way higher if you can wait for it all to all be used up

 

[Suggestions (including salt?) to prevent blackworm culture crashes?]

I've had a couple of seemingly healthy black worm cultures crash on me.  I finally got some new ones and I'm trying to prevent another crash.  I have some theories and some questions (at the bottom)

I think my setup is pretty good:  room temperature,  2.5gallons with a sponge filter, and daily 10% water changes.  The water parameters are consistently good. (The photo is my temporary quarantine/leach removal container)

I have two theories for the cause of the crashes:  Leaches and parasites.

Leaches

The basis for the leach theory is that with the last crash, the worms vanished and I was left with lots and lots of leaches (which came in with the black worms originally).  Then, I left the culture alone without changing anything.  In a few weeks the leaches were all gone.  I surmise that the leaches starved to death in the absence of the worms. 

So, I'm thoroughly picking through the worms to remove leaches.

Parasites

The parasite theory comes from this passage in a research paper I found (Lumbriculus is the genus black worms belong to):

"Ectoparasites can sometimes be associated with Lumbriculus obtained commercially or from natural habitats; their levels can get to a point where survival of the worms is jeopardized and the cultures crash. However, these ectoparasites can be removed by treating cultures with 0.6% sodium chloride in spring water. The EPA lab (Duluth, MN) found that salt provokes release of ectoparasites from the surface of the worms."

It's from here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8667080/

There's no reference given the for EPA lab's finding, which is annoying.

Questions

1. Any other suggestions to prevent crashes?
2. Has anyone tried treating black worms with salt?
3. Any suggestions on what process to use?  (e.g., how long to treat them)

Thanks

 

[What’s wrong with this CPD?]

What’s wrong with this fish?

Looks like it does in the photo. Lethargic.

Chlorine -0
Ammonia -0
Nitrates 10ppm
Nitrites 0
76F

Tanks been up for a year with no recent changes or problems.  Tank mates are CPDs, 3 male guppies, and a pretty chill betta.

I had a bought of _something_ that was killing guppies about 14 months ago.  I tried probably 5 antibiotics, and nothing worked.  I’m not excited to start down that road again unless I have some decent idea of what it is.

Does anyone ever successfully treat a fish this sick?

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

On 3/19/2023 at 7:10 PM, modified lung said:

I'm not sure I've tried dechlorinator with greenwater. Dechlorinator can kill Daphnia so I avoid it. Maybe that's the cause?

It seems like this might have been it.  I tried again last night with RODI water and already I see substantial algae growth and no floccing.  Of course it's all on the sides of the container instead of in the water column.  Still, it's encouraging to know I can grow some kind of algae.

On the other hand, and while I've been trying to get the green water ready to sub-culture from my remaining, previously-healthy moina culture, it crashed...

[Trying to find Microphis Deocata ?]

Oh, I was watching those and trying to get up the courage to buy them.  Looks like you beat me to it.  how are they doing?

What was the adventure?

 

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

On 3/19/2023 at 5:33 PM, Cory said:

How are you harvesting out of the jug? 

 

 

I should add that my original plan was to use the spigot to harvest.  That works ok if I drain a lot of the volume (like 30%), but draining small amounts of water doesn't yield many moina.  If you watch, you can see them swimming against the current and away from the spigot.

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

On 3/19/2023 at 5:33 PM, Cory said:

How are you harvesting out of the jug?

I just scoop in with a brine shrimp net.  It’s pretty easy.

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

On 3/19/2023 at 4:02 PM, modified lung said:

Is that all from the Morbloom or is your water high in K

I'd never measured my tap water, but it turns out it has K=10ppm.   Useful to know.

There is no cloudiness.

My report about the lack of visible cells in the floc was from an earlier trial with less algae.  I looked again with the current batch, and there's some bleached out algae in the floc.

Am I right to think that growing green water in this way should be relatively easy?  How long does it take it to darken up noticeably?

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

On 2/26/2023 at 11:41 PM, modified lung said:

I usually  add 1 mL of the ammonia and 0.25 mL of the PK fert per gallon of water at a time which makes about 5 ppm of NH3 and PO4. I do that a few times until the greenwater gets nice and dark.

So I've been trying this an I can't get it to work. 

1. I have a quart jar with aeration.
2. I've added ammonia and MorBloom to dechlorinated tap water to achieve NH3=8ppm, P=4ppm, k=20ppm
3. I've filter about 4oz of my existing culture through paper towel so it's mostly just Scenedesmus
4. Add the result pale green water to my jar
5. My photo period is 8 hours/day
6. and...nothing -- it's starts out very slightly green and clears up in a day or so. 

I find no sign of the algae (or anything else alive) under a microscope.  I don't get some fluffy white something (see photo) -- maybe precipitate, maybe dead something.  There are no visible cells in the fluffy stuff (alive or dead).

Any ideas?  Is my ammonia too high?

 

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

On 2/26/2023 at 11:41 PM, modified lung said:

I usually  add 1 mL of the ammonia and 0.25 mL of the PK fert per gallon of water at a time which makes about 5 ppm of NH3 and PO4. I do that a few times until the greenwater gets nice and dark

Do have any thoughts about one species of algae over another for green water.  I’m not sure what’s growing on the side of my containers but the free floating algae appears to be Scenedesmus Sp.  
 

I was thinking about ordering some Chlorella vulgaris, but I’m not sure if it makes any difference.

[Big Bad Blackworm Tower – Culture Journal]

@modified lung Have you ever tried using brown paper towel for black worms?  I see it referenced around the internet and especially in research papers.  

I tried it and it turned into a big soggy mess that made it really hard to separate the worms from the soggy bits of paper towel.  I was wondering if I was missing something.

 

 

[Favorite foods for bristlenose fry?]

On 3/7/2023 at 4:31 PM, anewbie said:

That is a Ancistirus Wabenmuster; and they can easily run $40+; 

Huh!  That's cool.  I paid ~$3/each for 5.

Thanks for feeding tips.

[What are these critters?]

They have are pin-head sized (.32mm) and they just appeared in large numbers on the walls of several of my tanks.  They seem stationary, but their insides move some under the microscope.

Can anyone ID them?

 

[Favorite foods for bristlenose fry?]

I purchased some bristlenose fry at an auction, and they are eating ok, but not great.  They are about 1.5".

I'm growing them out with some some other fry who devour BBS, grindle worms, and moina, but the bristlenose don't seem to excited about anything:  they'll nibble on frozen blood worms, algae wafers, and a piece of driftwood, but I'd like to see them eating better.

Any suggestions?

 

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

And then you harvest the moina until the green water is depleted and then seed the fresh greenwater with moina?

Thanks for the info!

[Any ideas to refine this moina/daphnia culture approach?]

I've been struggling to sustainably and densely culture moina for a year or so and I recently happened on this approach which seems promising. 

1. I have two 2.5-gallon containers that I started with some moina and old aquarium water. 
2. They are lit by a really powerful LED grow light that runs 12 hours/per day.
3. As you can see, I have a lot of algae growth
4. And I have really great crop of big, fat moina.
5. Since I got the light, I haven't been feeding them anything.

To be clear, I don't think it's technically green water, although it has a green tinge.  Most of the algae are on the sides, but it seems that somehow the moina are eating it.

Despite the current bounty, there are some problems.  Most notably, the algae grown is really out of control:  It pearls a great deal it took the water from Nitrate/nitrite = 40/7 to 0/0 zero in a day or two.  This makes me think it's ripe for a crash.  The other problem is that takes a lot of power:  the light is 120W so 12 hours is about 1.4kWh/day which is about $200/year.

So my next move is to reduce the photoperiod (unfortunately, the light is not dimmable).

But I'm curious if anyone else has suggestions, has tried anything like this, or has any other ideas on improving the setup.  I have a few specific questions, too:

1. Are the moina eating the algae that grows on the side, or do I effectively have a very pollute, weak green-water culture?
2. Could I just feed these cultures Easy Green?  Is there something better/cheaper?

Thanks.

 

[Big Bad Blackworm Tower – Culture Journal]

On 2/9/2022 at 8:16 AM, modified lung said:

I start biofloc cultures by adding 1/8 tsp of molasses in 1 gal of water. Add an air stone and light and that's it. After about a week, masses of biofloc will grow big enough to start flaking off the side of the jar from the turbulence.

I use this method to culture crazy amounts of daphnia. But daphnia don't need a lot of oxygen and biofloc cultures consume a lot of it.

This is a great thread, but this part about feeding biofloc to daphnia caught my eye.  Can you tell me more about how you do that?

thanks.

 

[Pineconing Scarlet Badis]

Any ideas what's wrong with him?  He used to be more gray/translucent but a couple days ago he turned opaque white.

 

 

[Finally, a female scarlet badis]

On 10/6/2022 at 2:27 PM, AnimalNerd98 said:

No spawns yet, but I just wanted to show some close-ups of the pair. 

How’s this going?

Any luck?

[Easiest setup for beginner? Live plants or no live plants?]

A friend of mine is thinking of getting his first aquarium. Probably a 20 gallon.  He wants it to be very low maintenance.  
 

The biggest first decision seems to be whether to get live plants or not:   live plans means a more expensive light and the additional cost of the plants, but it also means fewer water changes  and potentially having to deal with algae problems.  
 

So which is easier for a beginner in the long run plants, or no plants?