CBW "shelf life"

[scott]

well i guess the proper term would be fridge life. normally i go to my lfs every monday or tuesday, depending on my schedule, and buy enough CBW's to last the week. the problem is that the store is 30min away and it's hard for me to make the time to go every week and also they are a bit pricy(about $10 a week). if i was to start ordering them online and having them delivered how much could i buy at once? if i was to buy a months supply would they live that long. the longest i've kept them in my fridge for is about 2 weeks and they seemed just as lively as the day i bought them. i keep them in r/o water and rinse them a minimum of 4 times a day and most days i rinse them more than that. i have a small "beer fridge" in my fish room so keeping larger quantities won't upset my wife. i had to buy the fridge after some of the worms escaped in our regular fridge and needless to say i consider myself lucky not to be divorced after my wife found them crawling on the apple pie she baked the day before.

 

[farm41]

I keep mine for a week, rinse once a day with tap(I have my own well water). I have had them for up to 3 weeks, and they kept fine. I use the worm keeper container and put a 1/2 lb in it. My lfs is 30 minutes away too, so I don't always get them. I also feed live daphnia 3 days a week, so not that big a deal if I run out of worms.

I use to keep larger quantities of CBW in a 10g aquarium and feed the worms so they don't lose any weight or nutrient value. That is a tank you don't want to miss a daily water change on though.

 

[scott]

matt,

speaking of daphnia, i am having trouble with mine. i,ve been keeping the culture successfully for about 3 1/2 months.the last few days the culture seems to be dwindling. i keep them in a 33 gal container with 200 watts of incandescent lighting on 24/7. i feed them a yeast solution daily as well as a few drops of liquifry. i take about 25% of the water out every other day when harvesting the daphnia and replace it with r/o water. also since the culture has been "dying" i have noticed what looks light cob webs growing in the container. i have not changed my methods at all so i don't know why they seem to have stopped reproducing. how do you care for your culture?

 

[farm41]

Scott,

No RO for daphnia, they need the water fairly hard. I add baking soda to mine every water change. they need a high ph and hard water. I'm going to dig up my daphnia articles for you.

Another big thing for daphnia, is to not feed until the water is clear. I killed mine off lots of times, then I got started backing off on the feed. culture went crazy with new growth.

What temp are you keeping them at?

 

[farm41]

http://www.dallasdiscus.com/daphnia_article.htm

I have another article in word format, I'll email it if you want.

lost a lot of stuff when we got rid of old puter

 

[scott]

thanks alot. i use r/o because the tap in my town is awful. i guess i'll try the tap. at this point it can't get much worse. the article is very informative the only thing is my culture is daphnia pulex not moina. i know they are very similar but can the exact same methods be used for both? i keep them at about 70 degrees because that's the ambient temp in the basement where i keep them.

 

[farm41]

I keep mine at 70 also. If you have municipal water, is it chlorinated? That too is bad for daphnia. Be sure to treat it first.

I use the info on the magna that I keep.