Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations daphnia?

I don't have any experience in aquaculture or the aquarium world but have been learning lots about daphnia via youtube. It seems pretty simple to keep some daphnia cultures going and they seem to have great potential to keep fish happy and healthy in aquariums.

I ASSUME my pond has some in it? They live on algae naturally I guess? their bodies are 50% protein by dry weight?

So is there a way to capture and cultivate them for re-release in the pond or isn't there a way to make the numbers large enough?

How about boosting population in the pond? They feed on yeast too I guess and I imagine I could add yeast but I have plenty of algae for them to snack on too!

I use a 2 gallon tank and make my green water from freshly cut lawn in a rag dipped and rung out like a tea bag. I add one tea spoon of yeast. We have some in home fish tanks so I just pull the filter foam and squeeze it into the green water tanks. I find that sun light helps and when the tank goes from green to brown there is lots of daphnia in the tank. I didn't have much luck with adding air to the tanks. I think they are best left alone with no air.

How to capture it from the pond I don't know. With our last hatch of perch we did our water changes from the pond using pond water. The water was taken from the side the wind was blowing to and mid day full sun. Doing this we have been able to get more perch to live past the stage that they can eat the brine shrimp.

Cheers Don.

I can usually find daphnia along my pond edges after a good rain in which the pond level came up significantly. I usually find them shallow in the flooded vegetation and can get thousands of them by simply dipping a glass in the water once I find them. One thing I will say is that you really have to look hard to spot them.

Oh to just have some vegetation in the shallows, (or in the deep, or anywhere...) that is probably my issue I do have algae so I'll have to turn over the algae mats and look carefully.

Hello

With a good spot at night if you have Daphnia, they will come by millions

A few creatures that are attracted by light,
(infusaria,paramecie with different color white, green, pink,
Rotifer, Copepod, Cladocera (Daphnia),Fairy-shrimp.

A+

What amazed me a few days ago, is some water accumulated in a container out in the yard. Besides mosquito larva, it was filled with daphnia. How the heck?!?! I fished it all out, and put it in my aquarium where the fish scratched their heads at first, then went nuts!