Culturing Daphnia

Daphnia makes a great live food for bettas. I have had success and failure with keeping cultures going. When I was in Ohio I had a tank by a window that produced a ton of green water. Every other day water changes produced plenty of food for my daphnia. Here in Texas I seem to have difficulty keeping the green water supply going so have been having issues keeping my daphnia culture going. So I have done some searching on the net to see what others do to keep their daphnia going.

Many people feed the daphnia dry yeast. It is dissolved in water and dropped sparingly into the daphnia container, The daphnia eat the cloud of yeast. You will need to watch not to overfeed so the culture does not crash. Other suggestions are a cup of manure in a 5 gallon pail of green water with a 50 watt light bulb over the top. The daphnia eat the bacteria that grow from the manure and whatever green algae they can find.

Several places on the net also recommended adding calcium for the daphnia shells. A nylon bag  filled with some crushed coral or something similar will increase and buffer the  ph and supply the calcium for their shells. Without adequate levels they will reproduce sexually instead of asexually and produce resting eggs instead of living young.

A fellow betta breeder uses lettuce straight into the daphnia container. As it disintegrates the bacteria that forms on it feeds the daphnia. This has kept a small amount of daphnia harvestable on a regular basis.

Daphnia are great foods.. if you can figure out how to keep a culture going you will have some happy bettas.