NANFA-L-- Algae/daphnia cultures digest V1 #506

Gerald Pottern (gbpottern-in-yahoo.com)
Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:28:26 -0700 (PDT)

Jase, unless youre using sterile procedures throughout
(unlikely near fish tanks) youre NOT gonna have pure
cultures very long. spores/cells of other algae are
bound to get in there one way or another. You might
want to pour stream water thru a brine shrimp net to
eliminate hydra, but other than that dont worry about
contaminants. if you get overrun with filamentous
algae, just filter out the bulk of it with the BS net
and add snails, cherry shrimp, Ancistrus or something
to eat the macroalgae. My moina & daphnia grow much
better using a natural mix of filthy green-brown goop
from my turtle's water dish (outdoors) than with any
indoor green water i can grow.

I used to worry about contaminating my Philodina
rotifer culture with moina & other critters, and used
only tap water, fish food, & peas to culture them.
Then i discovered my turtle dish shimmering thick with
moina was ALSO thick with Philodina ! - way denser
than i could ever grow them indoors.

gerald
hangin on the Neuse, NC

Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 11:35:54 -0700
From: Jase Roberts <nanfa_list-in-jaseroberts.net>
Subject: NANFA-L-- Sterilizing water for algae/daphnia
cultures

Hi All,

I'm getting starter cultures of "greenwater" algae and
daphnia within
the next couple days. I'm trying to figure out what
water I should use
for them and how to treat it (if-in-all). My options
for water are
city tap water (don't know what kind of chlorination)
and river water
(about 20 feet from my door). I use the river water
for all my tank water
changes, but I'm thinking I might not want to use that
for the new
cultures I'm starting because of the risk of
introducing filamentous algae,
cyanobacteria, hydra, and other things I really don't
want. Same would
be true for using old aquarium water from my tanks.

So... should I use aged tap water? I've read that
even aged
chlorinated water can be bad news for daphnia. Boiled
river water? Is there
some other good way to sterilize water? UV treatment?

Or am I just overthinking this whole thing? I'd
really like to be able
to maintain these cultures as pure as posssible. My
various attempts
at setting up greenwater cultures have always been
overrun by
filamentous algae.

Thanks,
Jase
http://mail.yahoo.com
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