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Post by dvg on Aug 5, 2020 17:40:33 GMT
Earlier in May this year i collected some water from the drainage ditch from alongside the road in front of the house here. From that water, seed shrimp, cyclops copepods, a Daphnia were obtained and have since been kept in culture here. Here is a link to a thread i had started with regards to culturing these arthropods as feeders for Utric traps. cpnorth.proboards.com/thread/237/culturing-arthropod-feeders-utric-trapsThese feeders can also be employed by fishkeepers for the small fry they may be raising in their breeding projects. On the feeder front here, I have managed to keep collections of cyclops copepods, Daphnia, pond snails and seed shrimp. The cyclops copepods are tiny enough to fit into the smallest of bladderwort traps. They are also so tiny, that it is very difficult to completely keep them from being tankmates with my Daphnia or seed shrimp, though they seem to get along with the others. I currently have 9 containers of cyclops copepods, and them only. And i just have to accept that the copepods will be in with my other two feeders. The Daphnia are easy to keep, if they are fed and have occasional water changes. They are still alive in my ren-nel water tray, as well as a few other Utric containers. The seed shrimp have finally sprung to life here in an enclosure that had been built for them, complete with rocks, moss, baby snails and the ubiquitous cyclops copepods. For a while there were no seed shrimp swimming around, but with a little patience, some cysts produced a handful of them a few weeks ago, and now there are many more of varying size. These will soon be separated into a few more breeding chambers, to help keep them going. I have been feeding all of the cultures a yeast/spirulina mixture that is fed to fruit fly feeders. dvg |
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Post by dvg on Aug 6, 2020 23:44:43 GMT
A small bodied moth had gotten onto the surface of the seed shrimp enclosure. A couple days later there was nothing left of the moth, except for its bare wings and powdery trail spreading out and away from it. Those seed shrimp need a mineral source for their shells, (and are a great calcium source for bladderwort's), and fed like ravenous piranha on that poor moth's body. Well that gave me an idea; i remembered seeing that a large blue bottle fly was floating dead in a water pail in the garage. It had been a few days, but with a trusted set of forceps, the big blue fly was plucked out of the water. But something had already gotten a head start on it... ...a thick, white, filamentous fungus, now wet, so that it was a gelatinous blob!  Gross, right? But still curious if the seed shrimp would scavenge the blue bottle's body, that fly and its furry white sweater were tossed into the seed shrimp tank.  And the seed shrimp ♥️LOVE♥️ it!  There are many more on the underside of that fly-based fungal buffet!  dvg |
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Post by dvg on Aug 7, 2020 0:47:38 GMT
These hungry champs have already revealed part of the big blue bottle fly,  and that's why they get called "The Cleaning Crew". As an added plus, it looks like they arrived in numbers... There is also a cyclops copepods visible in this last pic... ...it looks like a ghostly tadpole. Can anyone spot it? *  *The cyclops copepods is located halfway between the centre of the pic and the lower right hand corner. dvg |
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Post by fredg on Aug 8, 2020 9:49:16 GMT
I am constantly surprised by the amount of wildlife that appears in my rain water barrels and trays. One of the Pinguicula trays currently has a good population of some kind of segmented aquatic wormy thingy ( technical term, sorry). There's always loads of midge larvae in summer and various other little darty-daphnia-copepod beasties. I've not noticed any bloodworm in the big working barrel this year but I suspect that will be a "yet".
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not here it isn't