Keeping Daphnia in Planted Tank as Self Sustaining Food Source?

[Mikeaq]

I just got 4 Indian Royal green pipefish and they need constant live food. I saw a video on YouTube where the guy had his daphnia culture in the planted tank with the pipefish by the hundreds.

I put my daphnia culture in the tank, it's perfect because the pipefish can only eat the small ones, so the big ones will keep reproducing. I have enough plants that some of the young will definitely make it to adulthood.

My question is, do I just squirt some food in there for the daphnia from time to time or will they be able to live off of what's produced by all the plants ?




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[Gillie]

Daphnia don't do well in filtered water, it removes their food. Daphnia are typically cultured in tanks aerated by an airstone and fed greenwater or yeast.

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[Mikeaq]

Daphnia don't do well in filtered water, it removes their food. Daphnia are typically cultured in tanks aerated by an airstone and fed greenwater or yeast.

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I read a lot of different posts online about them. And they all differ. People say no air stone because the small bubbles will kill them. Then some say keep a small sponge filter with them, they can pick food off of it, but make sure there are 10bps tops as smaller rapid bubbles will kill them.

The store I got the culture from said they go nuts for shrimp pellets. So I'm going to feed them in the tank, I ground up shrimp pellets and algae wafers in the blender and put the mixture in little squirt bottles. We'll see what happens. So far they've been in the tank with the pipefish for 4 days and there are still a lot.

I have a culture on the side as well just in case it doesn't work out as planned.

Gillie, I'm going to introduce a colony of neocardinia shrimp to provide another self sustaining food source. The tank is a 20 gallon, I have 2 sponge filters and one nano hang on with chemipure in it just to hold the carbon and create a little more flow.

How many shrimp would be safe to introduce to the tank at once? I found 50 culls for 30$ shipped. Is that too many to add all at once?


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[Gillie]

What size is the tank?

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[Mikeaq]

What size is the tank?

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It's a 20 long, right now it has 4 pipefish & 2 aspidoras


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[Gillie]

50 culls seems like it may be alot, but for the price, you almost can't pass it up

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