TOtrees Posted October 18, 2022 Share Posted October 18, 2022 That's like saying cows want to live at the stock yard. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KittenFishMom Posted October 20, 2022 Author Share Posted October 20, 2022 @totrees I think I struck it rich. I have just noticed I have a 40 gallon tote that is full of green water from this summer. It has had a stick in it so the squirrels and chipmunks can escape. The frogs have been hanging out there all summer. A lot of the time there has been a layer of duckweed on it. I scooped out a container of the water tonight and added some daphnia. the water was so cloudy, I could hardly see the daphnia so I added half well water. the daphnia are extremely active. Does anyone know the ratio of green water to non-green water is good for daphnia? We have a lot of empty bottles and will gather the green water before it freezes. Probably put it in the basement at home with some grow lights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOtrees Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 @KittenFishMom I don't think you can store green water so much as you can grow it. If you bottle it, it will need sunlight and nutrients and fresh air to stay alive, otherwise the algae will die and it will be foul. No I don't know how much light or nutrients, but I would guess a lot of the former and a wee wee bit of the latter. Took some more pics for you, when I harvested my cultures last night. After I collect water (with daphnias in it) from the tank, I pour it through a reuseable coffee filter. I use a turkey baster to sluice/pour the daphnias from the filter to a deli cup (squeeze water from a baster into the filter on an angle, so the daphnias pour out of the filter into a deli cup). Then I pour the contents of the deli cup through a fish net, to separate the large daphnia from the small. That gives me big daphias for adult fish, and tiny ones for fry tanks. Then feed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KittenFishMom Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 (edited) @TOtrees These photos are really great. Something odd is your daphnia are oblong and darker at one end. My daphnia are dark gray spheres. Maybe they are not daphnia? They are still in the fish tanks, even several days after a day of fasting the tanks. The water quality is better on all 4 tanks. The guppies swim right by my "daphnia" but go nuts for betta beads that they can not get in their mouths. They swim around like they are playing a strange version of soccer. Stealing the betta beads from each other. So it isn't that my daphnia are too big. My Daphnia swim around and are attacked to light if it is dark. I wonder what they are? My wonderful husband is taking more with his camera. My daphnia from my cell phone: Edited October 21, 2022 by KittenFishMom added 1st photo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOtrees Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 (edited) There are many species of Daphnia, and they can look a little different depending on what they have in their gut and whether they are mature and carrying eggs. I always think they look like fat little rats with ginormous antlers, and the antlers are used like boat oars except on their head. I collect my Daphnia from ponds in my local forest. This year for the first time, I saw some that looked very different from normal, but I’m reasonably sure they were just a different form of the same thing. I think the video is in slow motion. You can see they are more spherical and much bigger than other Daphnia shown. But I think they’re still Daphnia because of the general similarity in the arrangement of things in the body, and if you look closely they appear to have those funny antler things. My hypothesis is they are a different form or lifestage of the regular Daphnia I see you collect that only appears occasionally for some reason rather. Are these like what you’re seeing? The only fish I had that were even remotely interested in eating them were a couple of adult golden wonder killifish. Edited October 21, 2022 by TOtrees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KittenFishMom Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 (edited) I normally only collect in spring and fall when the mosquitoes are not around. I hate bug spray and I can't think straight while being swamming on a dock. I thought you fed the daphnia to your fish, but you said you fish did not eat them. Maybe you meant the did not eat these round ones. Maybe my guys are getting a heavy "coat" for overwintering in the mud on the shore? @TOtrees My husband took a bunch more photos. I will added his photos Edited October 21, 2022 by KittenFishMom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOtrees Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 Yes, I meant that mostly the fish don’t eat the ginormous death star ones. The ones from all the other photos in previous posts are consumed with abandon. I think you might have some kind of aquatic mite in your photos. I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like they have lots of legs which daphnia do not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KittenFishMom Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 @TOtrees When I enlarged my husbands photos I said. "Boy they look a lot like ticks." Is there anyone on the forum that is up on these things? @Guppysnail or @Colu or @Streetwise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 That’s not daphnia @Biotope Biologist @modified lung 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KittenFishMom Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 @Guppysnail Thanks for helping on this. I am planning to ship guppies to SD on Monday. I need to find out if it will be OK now that whatever these things that have been in the tanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biotope Biologist Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 (edited) Those are water mites. Likely limnesiidae. I’m not super well versed in limnology so that’s my best educated guess. Edited October 21, 2022 by Biotope Biologist 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KittenFishMom Posted October 21, 2022 Author Share Posted October 21, 2022 @Biotope Biologist I was going to ship guppies on Monday that have had these hydrachnidae in the tanks for more than a week. Are they a bad thing? do they hurt the aquarium and the fish? They appear to be improving my water test result and removing cloudiness. The last thing I want to do is spread them if that are bad in tanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biotope Biologist Posted October 21, 2022 Share Posted October 21, 2022 I believe they only parasitize aquatic insects but I do not encounter them in my line of work so I know very little. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modified lung Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 @KittenFishMom Definitely water mites. They won't hurt anything in your aquarium. I had some come in with blackworms once. In their juvenile stage they only parasitize on flies. They supposedly taste bad to fish but I don't think they're harmful at all if eaten. @TOtrees the death stars don't look like Daphnia either. But they're probably closely related. I'd be interested in what they are if you can get a really close photo. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOtrees Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 @modified lung back in May when I collected them, I spent a ton of time looking for what the Death Stars were. Had no luck at the time. Your comment above that they’re not Daphnia got me looking again today and I’m pretty sure I landed on the right info, finally/eventually. Found some photos and a YouTube video of clam shrimp or seed shrimp, ie Ostracoda. I’ve heard of seed shrimp before, and seen photos and videos from peoples tanks here and there, but they’ve always been really small and generally indistinct (and grey/brown not red). I’ve also heard the terms seed shrimp and scud (gammarus) used interchangeably - classically confusing scenario of a single common name used for two different taxa. I think what’s cool is that the pond I collected these from is seasonal and was diminishing rapidly. The red color of the ostracods that matches the daphnias suggests they use the same haemoglobin based mechanism for transporting oxygen as daphnia (and us). https://www.nature.com/articles/166609a0 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modified lung Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 @TOtrees they could definitely be ostracods. I have some big ones almost the size of Daphnia that are tan with big dark brown spots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KittenFishMom Posted October 22, 2022 Author Share Posted October 22, 2022 Thank you to everyone ! @Biotope Biologist @modified lung @TOtrees Now that I know what they are, will they prey on scuds? Will they die off quickly with no food source, or do I need to work on getting them out of the tanks before I add scuds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modified lung Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 @KittenFishMom I think the population would at the very least die off from old age since they need flies during the juvenile stage. Adults might eat scuds but I'm not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KittenFishMom Posted October 22, 2022 Author Share Posted October 22, 2022 @modified lung I can set up container with a few scuds and a few water mites and a bit of plant matter and see what happens in a few days. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modified lung Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 On 10/22/2022 at 12:22 PM, KittenFishMom said: @modified lung I can set up container with a few scuds and a few water mites and a bit of plant matter and see what happens in a few days. That would be really interesting. Let us know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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