Free Fish Food
Posted on May 22, 2008 under Aquaponics, Fish, Fish farming, Self Sufficiency |Daphnia (a.k.a. water fleas) can be bought at most aquarium shops, but what if you could get them for free? These tiny crustaceans are really easy to breed. In the summer months you can simply put a bucket filled with old aquarium water in a sunny place and they will have enough food to thrive and you will have a constant supply of free fish food.
I filled a 250 liter rainwater barrel with aquarium water and put some fish food in there every few days until I had a nice algae bloom.
I went to the aquarium store quite a few times, but each time they where out of life daphnia, I used too see them there every time, but now that I needed them they didn’t have any… typical…
Eventually I managed to buy a small bag. I put them in the green water and after only two weeks the water was crystal clear and swarming with daphnia. Every day I can scoop some out to feed my fish but the supply seems endless.
During winter the barrel froze over and I thought that the water fleas had probably all died, but to my surprise they continued breeding when spring arrived.
If you want to have live fish food during the winter as well, you can set up a culture vessel inside, but you will probably have to feed them.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I wonder if this could be used as a food source for aquaponic fish, creating less input in the food chain.
Great post!
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:52 am
I’m currently feeding my aquaponics goldfish with these, so stay tuned to find out if it works
May 25th, 2008 at 12:04 am
awesome experiment.
July 19th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Thank you, great idea, but
life is a noun, and live and living are adjectives.
Improper grammar won’t kill your fleas, but proper grammar will please your readers.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Thanks for noticing, errors like that will not be caught by your regular spell checker.