RE: What's happening?
Liane Cochran-Stafira (lcochran@midway.uchicago.edu)
Mon, 3 Jun 1996 10:10:57 -0500 (CDT)
Ken,
Daphnia and other such freshwater crustacea used to be commonly
sold in pet shops as fish food. They have sort of fallen out of favor over
the last several years because they are getting harder and harder to
collect by economically feasible means (although frozen daphnia and other
plankton are readily available). You might try visiting a local pond to
collect some yourself. Filter some of the water through a "brine shrimp"
net to strain them out. They can be cultured using algae or eggyolk as
food, but it's a bit tricky (especially with the egg yolk). I can supply
you with the protocols if you are interested. Another source is Carolina
Biological or Ward's Biology Supply; however, these sources are not
particularly cheap when you are looking for a continuous supply. You might
also look in the ad sections of some of the major aquarium magazines. I
often find mail order suppliers of all sorts of stuff there.
Just a thought - in the summer I keep a bucket of rain water on my porch
and every few days I collect the small mosquito larvae to feed my fish. I
have seen some of the Utrics that sport large traps use the smaller larvae
as food. Just remember to keep an eye on the bucket so you don't become
the scourge of your neighborhood in terms of breeding pesky mosquitoes.
Hope this helps,
Liane
>Where do you get the daphnia & Cyclops? I have checked every =
>aquarium/fish supply for miles around and noone seems to even know what =
>I am talking about. Does anyone know of a mail-order supplier of "food =
>stock" for my Utrics? Preferably in the U.S......
>
>Ken C.