daphnia, fairy shrimps and other infaunal organisms

[swords]

Like the title says, I'm curious how many of you are growing these and how it's going? Do they become easily established in planted tanks?

If you have a planted tank go all "pea soup" on you, will adding a few hundred live Daphina clean it up for you as well as feed the fish? Will those big filter feeding freshwater Wood and Stone shrimps eat the daphnia, fairy shrimps and clam shrimps or must the food be far smaller? I saw a planted tank with a dozen or two of them today and they were so cool, I love their fans. Seems they like being in a group all clustering together and ignoring the rest of the tank and they look very impressive at 2-3" long.

snails, shrimps, infaunal organisms I just need some very tiny FW aquatic crabs, crays and FW sponges to have my FW reef! LOL

 

[amphirion]

key to having a very healthy planted tank is to have a very large micro-invet base. i have some sort of daphnia or micro invert growing in my tank as well as rotifers and scuds.

let me know where you get your freshwater sponges. lol. but im serious.

 

[swords]

HEHE yes if I ever locate the sponges for sale I'll tell everybody but so far I've only read about them. IIRC they were from mountain streams or deep mountain lakes at higher altitudes so cooler water.

So if I were to add a few packets of eggs and some live stuff they will be able to establish themselves as long as I give them time to settle and begin breeding before I introduce the fish? I'm in no hurry for the fish since the tank is "done" then AFAIK. Do I powder some fish food for these things to get kicked off feeding or do they find a balance of available foods naturally generated by a planted tank and their population?

I assume I should cover the filter intake with a piece of nylon to keep them from being pureed by the power filters impeller?

 

[amphirion]

you could, but most infaunal organisms end up running to the substrate---being in the water column increases your chances of getting eaten....daphnia for the most part can avoid the filters, but yes, i would use a filter sponge or nylon to reduce flow and getting pureed.

 

[Taliesin-DS]

It's hard to keep live food established in an aquarium with fish imho.
in my 10g daphnia only stays alive for a day, then its allrdy eaten.
Tubifex is easier to keep around, but also harder to catch for fish, mine dont even try once they're dug in.

 

[swords]

I got my fairy shrimp eggs today along with two packets of food which is some green powder, no instructions though. Does one packet of powder make a gallon of green water that I turkey baster into the fishtank every other day or do I just sprinkle a pinch of the dust on the water surface or...?

 

[raymond]

Well there is a crab called the Thai Micro crab which is the size of a cherry shrimp, I don't know about it though.

 

[swords]

Thanks Ray, I looked them up they are very cool little crabs, it appears people say they "breed in freshwater" and this appears technically true making eggs and releasing larvae (Zoea) but they don't seem to live past 9 days. I think they must need slightly brackish water for the larvae to be reared successfully, possibly as well as deciphering what sort of food they require at that stage. Iodine may also be needed, I use Kent marine iodine in my Geosesarma Vampire Crab pools where they molt and swim. The Vampires are totally freshwater but actually carry their eggs until hatching, they never release plankton, just one day she's carrying a clutch of eggs on her belly and the next month there are fruitfly sized crabs darting about when you mist the tank. My oldest vampire crab babies are several months old and larger than the Thai Micro Crab adults but still have not started to turn red.

Here's about the most decent article I could find on the Thai Micro Crabs:
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=60

Most info in the article is referenced from Oliver M. who runs the German http://www.panzerwelten.de crab forum and helped me a lot with my Red Vampire Crabs.