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Well all the the exact data I have ever seen on lighting for algae cultures were simply number of photons/second/ and some square unit, as I based all my cultivation methods on scientific papers, but I would assume that is not very helpful for you 🙂 But intensive outdoor cultivation runs well with daylight, use any daylight type if you want to have lighting. Do not use to strong, very strong lighting may lead to the colapse of the culture. South directed windows are not optimal during summer. I use small aquariums for cultivation that are built to be like 30x30x10 cm and place them on the window or give a 18w tube in front of two of them. With the earation stearing, all cells should get enough light. What seems to be more important for intensive cultivation is for how long per day the light is available. 12-16 hours is ok. Of course longer is better but again, 12 hours is just ok. If you intend to do it start slow, with new cultures, if you have windows in the room you do not need any aditional lighting for starting the culture. After when you have bigger tanks and high density of algae, than lighting helps.
I do not think that Caridina would be able to consume live Chlorrela unless you let the algae sediment and put a lot in to the tank. But you can grow sessile algae on surface of different objects and offer these to your Caridina. The method for cultivation is basically the same, but you mostly do not need to look for starting culture, simply finding a stone or anything else overgrown with algae should work. Than you can use the same type of cultivation media and just put some objects in it. After they are overgrown with algae, you simply move these to shrimp or catfish tanks, or wherever you need. Whats great is sessile algae are very often again overgrown with sessile Rotifera,so it may very well happen that you could be able to cultivate both this way. Most of the time when we see some kind of fish to nibble on surfaces overgrown with algae, they are most likely to be feeding on other organisms that themselves feed on algae cells. Most of the algae are digestible for crustaceans, but not for higher water organisms, becouse their cell membranes consist of cellulose.
This is very important when you want to use dried powder algae product. Some people use Chlorella powder to feed food organisms and even fish fry. But such kind of powder is produced by processing the dried Chlorella in special mills, that crush the cell membranes and make the valueable nutrients accesible. The problem is that when you put this powder in to the water, all the nutrients from the crushed cells dissolve in water and what you end up doing is you simply polute the water and mostly feed with empty cell membranes that have close to zero nutritional value (the same as with frozen live foods) . So if you ever want to use powder substance, go for Spirulina. Spirulina is not alga, its basically bacteria and its cell membranes are easily digestible, therefore it does not have to be processed this way and its cell membranes are not damaged. If you do not overfeed, it is great for example to grow bigger brine shrimp that you than use for feeding. Of course you can use it for Moina too, but its pretty much the same as with yeast. Its hard to feed just enough, but not to much. When you intend to use it, the best preparation is to use a small vial with cover. Put in some water, a little of the powder and let it soak for couple minutes. Than shake vigorously untill you get a suspension and feed with it. But again in my eyes, all the dry foods are better for encapsulation of food organisms right before feeding where you can put some harvested animals aside and let them feed in special container for couple hours.Yes, Dorothee, I meant you 🙂 thank you for answer.
I am reading these posts with great interest, – moina are such a good food and supply to artemia.Thank you everyone for these posts on Moina.
Moina were my favorite foods (for the Paros.. ha, ha), followed by brine shrimp and occasioal Black Worms.
I could keep Moina for months by always having a small culture for a back up…and still an eventual total colapse. always I think because of being too eager for more!!!
I would harvest them to a lamp and net when they appeared to be pink or orangish in color. I did use mostly yeast and a small pinch of Spirolena to feed them.Thank you all again for the great tips!
[quote=”Ted” post=3593]Moina were my favorite foods (for the Paros.. ha, ha)
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Made my day Ted 🙂Hello everyone. Here is very extensive paper on Moina and Daphnia that contains a lot of general information even though it is related to two particular species.
http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/62460/1/02whole.pdf
Thank you for that literature. But: Yuk Fung Jaime Leong writes on Daphnia carinata and Moina australiensis. I don’t know both species. We in Europe use mostly other species of Daphnia (mainly D. pulex and some other genera, as Bosmina spec., and Moina, preferably Moina macrocopa. I know that there are some differences in ecological requirements between some species of Daphnia (and certainly Bosmina) and probably between different species of Moina. But I do not know what it amounts to in culturing them.
I did not read that longish paper; perhaps it will deal with that questions. Which species did you use, especially which species of Moina?
I thought the paper could be interesting in some general stuff, like the mass cultivation in waste waters and factors that will most likely limit or stop asexual reproduction mainly. My Moina is most very likely either M.macrocopa or M.brachiata according to the typical pudlle occurance and the altitude of the locality. There are 5 species of Moina in Czech Republic but only these two reach this high population densities and occure in such environments. Other 3 are typical pond species.
Davy,
It will of course depend on the initial dose but if you keep it low, once a week should do. What is best is to grow high density culture of algae first, than let it sediment and pour out enough of the cultivation sulution to be able to dilute it in like 1:5 ratio with clear water. Growing the culture should not take long when you start with 10% of inoculum. Than put the aeration back in and wait for about 3 days. This way you are able to starve the algae from macro elements and it will make them prepare for “bad times”. What they do than, is they start to produce reserve substances like HUFAs and PUFAs and other lipids or other valuable nutrients that are not present in the algae cells to nearly such content when the algae have enough nutrition. Of course by limiting the macro elements, you cause the culture to stop the reproduction or it will reproduce much slower but you will get much more valuable algae and therefore much valuable Moina.
Tks Pavel!
I received my order from interaquaristik, I give Moina Futter to my Moinas at this moment. Waiting for chlorella and green water…
I hope that works for you, definitely try the above green water too, if the cultivation works, its always best to have more algae strains for Moina.
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