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I would like to begin culturing freshwater Moina. For the past week I have been attempting to source some, to start me off, either live (from within the UK) or as cysts (from elsewhere).
Um … I haven’t had much success. That is: I haven’t had any success! If I were wanting saltwater Moina I wouldn’t have a problem, of course!
Please does anyone know where I could buy a small amount of Moina cysts?
I am sorry I cannot help you, – I am just wondering … can you get Moina as cysts ??? I have never heard about that.
I am always looking for moina in Denmark, with not much luck either. I used to be able to keep moinas for long periods with good results, now my cultures never lasts long ..
I dont quite understand why this is so 🙁Hope you find some, – its a very valuable food
There are places here in the U.S. that you can purchase small quantities of Moina. Actually I think I can go out to the fish farms and purchase a bottle right out of the feeding vats. However, that will not do you any good living in the UK. Even if I were able to aquire cysts I not sure I could get them through customs or the mail system to you.
Vale!,
Have you tried:
or
http://www.tropicalaquatica.co.uk/livefood.htm
or
AQUATIC LIVE FOODS
2 ALBONE WAY
SG18 8BN BIGGLESWADE, BEDFORDSHIREPhone: 01767 319087
Fax: 01274 690729I dont know that any of them definitely do Moina, but they will be worth trying.
Regards
Paul
As far as I know there are no saltwater Moina and surely no Moina cysts. This is obviously a short but wrong way of speaking among aquarists. Some of them in our country have formerly called the Moina macrocarpa “freshwater Artemia”. That’s the same nonsense vice versa and only means that there is a species of very small and easy to grow live food (Moina) that in some respect (easy and fast breeding, smallness, the youngest as small as Artemia naupliae) resembles Artemia but with the big advantage that they live in fresh water and not in salt water. There are Artemia cysts easily to be boxed and bought, but there is not the same with Moina. There are no “permanent eggs” (cysts) boxed in tins or cans and sold in the shop. The whole biology is totally different. It’s a totally different organism. More like Daphnia or Bosmina, but different from them, too.
The point is that our Parosphromenus very much like the soft Moina and rather dislike the hard Daphnia. And the breeding of Moina resembles that of Daphnia, but is different also. The most striking difference is that Daphnia like oxygen-rich clear water, whereas the Moina like less oxygen-rich water which is often not clear at all but full of nutrients. The reproduction can be very fast. Every two or three days you can feed all your Paros with Moina of all stages. But often the reproduction will not work, too. That depends on the very different biology of Moina if compared with Daphnia. one must learn it but then it’s easy. In any case it is highly recommended to try to get them and to use them. Paros will thrive.
Fortunately, in a former mail here an British address was mentioned. And I just received a mail by our new member Dr. Stephen Simkins from Western Massachusetts, a micro biologist, who told me that “Carolina Biological” (I don’t know what that is exactly) sell Moina cultures in the U.S.
My last recommendation is to attend our first international Meeting of the Parosphromenus-Project at the end of September 2013 in Hamburg, Germany. At least ten species of licorice gouramis could be bought there, and Moina!Carolina Biological is company that provides scientific materials for schools mainly for biology, Chemistry and physics classrooms. Individuals can order items of interest also. See the link below.
http://www.carolina.com/product/moina+culture+kit.do?keyword=moina+cultures&sortby=bestMatches I don’t know if they will ship internationally.
Vale! – I did not have an opportunity to see any of the fish farmers this past week, but I should see them later this week. I will run the question by them when we get together.Hello Threadmates!
Thank you all for your various replies so far.
@ Helene. I know that my use of the word ‘cysts’ is inexact and that I should properly be using the term ‘ephippia’, i.e. the eggs that Cladocera produce in adverse conditions. With multi-layered cell walls, they give their parent species the chance of surviving periods of cold or drought. I’m positive we both understand this.
However the term ‘ephippium’ is not understood by fishkeeping hobbyists and isn’t used in conversations between the trade and hobbyists (not in the English language anyway!). Instead, the term ‘cyst’ is used – presumably because of its familiarity in other contexts.
Ephippia of Moina salina are pretty easy to get hold of – they’re (relatively) widely cultured by marine fishkeepers. I feed Artemia occasionally to my other fish and I wash them several times in RO/DI water before feeding : in that context it doesn’t matter too much if not all of the salt is washed out. However, I’m slightly worried about incomplete washing if I were to feed to Paros, given the narrow conductivity tolerances (apparently) involved. Hence my search for ‘freshwater’ Moina as a preference. Again, rightly or wrongly, some tradespeople do seem to make a distinction between ‘freshwater’ and ‘saltwater’ Moina. Maybe I’ll come back to that when I get to Peter’s reply.
@Little. Yes – I had an exchange with Florida Aqua Farms about a week ago. They said : “we do not carry them in cyst form so we could not ship”. From here (UK) I haven’t so far been able to trace other commercial outlets in the US that sell Moina, so I’m extraordinarily glad of your attention and presence ‘on the ground’, so to speak!
re Carolina Biological : now there’s a coincidence! Getting nowhere with my enquiries, I tried a little sideways thinking which led me to contact one or two fish-farming outlets and a trade body ; and also companies that specialise in selling biological supplies to schools etc. One of the latter was Blades Biological Ltd. Its reply to my enquiry came in with the subject header: ‘Carolina Information’. This baffled me until I read that they “are proud to be the UK official supplier for Carolina Biological Supply! Anyway, their reply was: “Thanks for your email. I am afraid it is quite difficult to import living cultures, there are so many restrictions. However leave it with me and I shall make some enquires [sic]”.
@Paul. [Great to hear, btw, that your bintanarrived safely and in good health. I’ll reply to your e-mail when I’ve completed arrangements re my opallios]. Thanks for your links. I’d looked at the first two. Livefishfood said: ” Hi Andy Sorry only Bloodworms, Daphnia or River Shrimps”. My PC won’t display any contact details for TropicalAquatica, so I wasn’t able to progress that.
I hadn’t come across your third link, though. I’ll certainly give them a bell later today and see what they say. Biggleswiggle isn’t too far away from me here so, in the unlikely event of a miracle happening, it would be quite convenient. [Edt : just phoned and they’re not replying. Will try again later].
@Peter. My reading has led me to believe that the Moinidae are taxonomically identified as being a family within the order Cladocera (as are the Daphniidae) one of the features of which is the ability to form ephippia. I could very well be wrong, of course!
The final paragraph of this document seems to support my understanding.
I’ve come across many references to ephippia in Moina – this or this for example – and I know that I can buy them from commercial outlets that supply the marine hobby (as I mentioned above). I’m not comparing the biologies of Artemia with Moina – many apologies if I’ve given you that impression ; the only relevant biology in this context is the ability of both Daphnia and Moina to form ephippia.
So (again from my reading and interpreting what you have written) it appears we may have a number of ‘freshwater’ species of Monidae. Some/most/all of them can survive in saltwater of various salinities. If that’s the case, it may follow that I should, in fact, be able to source ephippia of (say) Moina salina and successfully rear them in freshwater! That would be a good result! Do you think it’s worth giving it a try and seeing what happens?
Do you remember what was the ‘British address’ that you referred to – will I find it if I search the site for ‘Moina’ ?
All Best to everyone
Andy
Latest news …
I’ve had an e-mail back from Blades Biological Ltd. saying:
“Carolina do stock living cultures of Moina. Within my next monthly order which I shall place on the 15th October I will try and order one in for you.
The price would be £8.70 per culture.”I’ve said “yes” of course and await to see if their attempt to import is successful.
Andy, we must speak more exact and speak about species. It is not sufficient to speak about the genus Moina.
You have Moina salina in mind, I spoke of Moina macrocopa. The first is a saltwater form and I have no experience with it. The latter is a freshwater form and it is that Moina which is talked about when we have Parosphromenus in mind. I learn that some Killifish friends use M. salina, but all is much easier mth M. macrocopa.
You are right with your remarks on Ephippia. I cannot say anything about M.salina, but there are Ephippia with M. macrocopa. However, to my knowledge they cannot be stored and canned like the cysts of Artemia. I only once encountered them indirectly in my M. macrocopa vessels: The adult animals had died for some reason and I did not clean up the vessel (because of laziness). Nothing was swimming around any more for days, even weeks. But about a fortnight or three weeks later there were Moina again. I never have encountered this a second time, but in principle it proves the existence of Ephippia. Unfortunately I was not able to repeat that by experiment. Unfortunately they obviously cannot be stored in a dried form as we woud like they could (as e.g. Daphnia). Maybe this is different with M. salina; I don’t know.
Your remark on the reason why you don’t use saltwater organisms for freshwater fish (to prevent the extremely pure water to be enriched with minerals) does not fit to your speaking of M. salina. Maybe, M. salina is comparable to Artemia salina: There is no reason to be afraid of destroying the labile blackwater milieu if you wash that food in soft freshwater before feeding by using a sieve suited to the tiny organisms. I never had such problems. They still live for some hours even in softest freshwater, but you should feed only tiny quantities that are eaten within minutes. The huge advantage of M. macrocopa is the fact that they need no saltwater, could be fed nearly directly and could live for days in your tank. Even the adults are rather small, and then there are smaller forms of all ages. The youngest of them are as tiny as the freshly hatched Artemia naupliae. And contrary to Daphnia they are soft, without hard shells, the fish eat them eagerly and could become fertile by them. This latter is the same with Artemia.
However, mostly M. are not easy to get hold of; in Germany we normally get our starting populations from other breeders. They could easily be fed by baker’s yeast, and algae and some special solutions are possible too. There is one great difference to breeding Daphnia pulex: The m. macrocopa live in a high density of food particles; if they are not fed every day anew the animals can be lost within days. But if the proliferation once has started, a tiny vessel could produce so much most excellent food for quite an assembly of pairs and their young.
So, I would conclude that M. macrocopa (sometimes they are called M. macrocarpa; I don’t know which is right, the former it seems to me) is the right Moina for Parosphromenus.
At the first international meeting next September in Hamburg we will sell starting populations.Thanks to Martin Hallmann I can add a very good article on the culture techniques of Moina as they were developed in Florida. Things work easier too, but the article goes into the fundamentals and is very informative. It was first written 1992, then revised in 2003 and newly reviewed 2011:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa024
At the end they name two people of the University of Florida as sources for Moina: Scott Graves and Robert Leonard, Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory, 1408 14th ST SE, Ruskin, FL 33570, (813)671-5230.
The species mostly recommended is Moina macrocopa.I’m sorry I thought I had posted that link previously. The Aquaculture Laboratory is close to where I reside and Craig Watson, the director, and the staff members such as Scott and Robert are very supportive of the local aquarium society for which I am a member and current president. The real purpose of the laboratory however is to support the numerous ornamental fish farms that are located in the area and throughout the state of Florida. Periodically, we have the wonderful opportunity to hold a club meeting in the facility and on occasion we have the opportunity to tour the facility and view the various projects and experiments being conducted. It is a valuable resource to the local hobbyist but more importantly to the ornamental fish farming industry here is the U.S.
Hello Everyone
Well, I have some news (reference the paragraph to Bill in my message #1146)!
Whereas Carolina Biological refused to ship Moina cultures to me, they did so willingly to their UK agent – Blades Biological. In turn, BB sent them on to me. As a result, I now have some Moina!
They arrived on Saturday and in surprisingly good health. Not only are they still alive, they seem to have increased in number on a staple diet of horse poo!
So long as I confirm with them, in due course, that the cultures remain healthy, Blades Biological seem willing to repeat the exercise – not only for me (should my cultures collapse at some point) but also for any interested UK fishkeepers.
That sounds really good.
I would like to share one experience with you here regarding keeping moina which I has recently helped me overcome my ‘moina’ crisis.
A few years ago I always had moina with success, – then I moved flat and didnt have enough space for the big container I used. But everytime I set up another culture in the new flat they simply did not live more than a little over a week, two weeks and I didnt understand at all.
Now I tried again, and asked the person who gave the culture to me, to give me any advice she could – one of them was to always keep a lid on the container (or she said the surface would become too cold). This was the only thing I could see had been a difference in what I had done, because in the new flat I only had space for small containers and I had actually not had a lid on it. I always had before, because I kept the cultures in an old tank with light armatur on it.
Now I have, and I am amazed to see that my cultures thrive just as they used to in the ‘good old days’. So my advice is : always remember a lid and good lightning above to keep it warm.Here’s a progress report:
I can’t see a ‘preview’ button here, so I’m trusting to luck that the link will work!
This culture is in an unheated tank next to a window. They’re fed, so far, with phytoplankton powder and gram flour. They have a couple of apple snails and a couple of ramshorn snails for company (and for extra infusoria!).
The tank was originally uncovered but I took your advice, Helene, and made a cover from acrylic sheet. I’m not convinced about the need for strong light, though – mainly becuase the phytoplankton are dead. I guess if the Moina were relying on living, photosynthesising food then good lighting would be significant factor? Or am I missing something?!
Actually … just to make sure, I’ll try culturing some of the phytoplankton powder and see if anything appears to wake up!
Perhaps light is about warmth … when you have moina you can see them gather very much just below the lamp, but this is of course also where the water is warmest…
or maybe it is just a reflex just as artemia nauplia has, to move in the direction of the light.
I am pretty sure it has not got much to do with being able to see things somehow.Interesting that you are experimenting a bit with it
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