Advice needed for Daphnia Culture

[tony evans]

Hi There, Newby here UK based, I'm looking at starting a Daphnia Culture in a 20 gallon tank to eventually feed my Koi and also to go in my Wildlife pond. I've read the excellent article on site but my questions are i'm planning on having it indoors but i also want to have freshwater shrimp in it to also feed my koi and the wildlife pond. Is this possible and if so need a suitable breed of shrimp ( what i can get hold of in the UK)

Thank you in advance

Tony

[Preston John]

Great Question!

I do all my daphnia magna breeding indoors and a 20 gallon is great so long as they are harvested daily to avoid over populating the tank. I have cherry shrimp in all of my cultures, however I've never they never breed as well as in other tanks. But it can be done. I've also found that if the culture is feed anything other than spirulina algae the shrimp will become unhealthy pretty quickly. You can also culture scuds in the same tank, but I've found they normally end up taking over the culture. 

[tony evans]

Thank you for replying John, desperate for advice, i've also heard the Cherry Shrimp is difficult to breed, i've seen a river shrimp on e-bay what looks good will have to look into them as well. At the moment i'm looking at Daphnia, Ramshorn Snails,Louse, Shrimp( suggestions needed for a suitable easy to breed one),Scuds (if they wont take over) hopefully to harvest all these for my wildlife pond (goldfish in there what have bred as well) and to feed my Koi.

If there's anything there what sets alarm bells or any other suggestions please let me know

Thank you

Tony

Edited September 26, 2020 by tony evans