Daphnia v Moina

[Bender]

I've had an infusoria culture going for months now, and had always thought it contained moina, but wasn't 100% sure they weren't daphnia. This week I saw my first real daphnia and now I am sure! They are comparatively huge. I've taken photo's for you to see.

Now before anyone says that's just a baby daphnia, look at the tiny spec at the top of the picture, that is a baby Moina! Here is a pic of a moina and baby.

As some sort of a reference, the lumpy surface they are on is actually a perfectly smooth china saucer, so this would be close to microscopic.

According to one reference, the reason I had moina instead of daphnia was the temperatures in my house. The moina cope with higher temperatures than daphnia can live at. Now it's cooled down, the daphnia have apeared in a small tank that only has some moss in it, but the other culture still only has moina. These guys are a much better size for fry, the adult is slightly bigger than a bbs, but their young are much smaller. I'm doing my best to keep this culture jumping, but was wondering if anyone else would like some? I think it would be an ideal strain for fish rooms that are heated, like Lilli's. I'm not sure how I'd send them, but was thinking of a little vial of some kind, or maybe in a little java moss in a bag.

Also, would it be ok to set up a spawn tank a fortnight in advance and treat it like a giant culture so it was alive with the critters when dad was introduced? If my theory holds true, you wouldn't need to feed the fry much until the moina visibly decreased in the tank, hopefully till they were ready to go onto grindals.

[Chuckie]

would it be ok to set up a spawn tank a fortnight in advance and treat it like a giant culture so it was alive with the critters when dad was introduced?

Sure, mine are all full of this sort of stuff! but the male and female will eat a lot of it before they even spawn, and the fry will eat an amazing amount too, so I still think you'd need to feed eg bbs until they were ready to eat grindals

If you're shipping it about, I would like some. I'd probably put it in a fish bag with an elastic band and then put that in a little box of some sort. Or you could wrap, say, an empty plastic 250ml coke buddy or similar in brown paper and post it in a little bit of water in that.