How to culture daphnia?

It'sJames

I collected some daphnia from a local source a couple days ago, and I would like to culture them so I have a steady supply for my bettas and DPs. What's the best way to keep them? Will they reproduce on their own?
I was thinking I would use a 10 gallon with an aerator and maybe a DIY sponge filter. Will this be alright, or would the sponge filter suck the smaller ones in? What should I feed them?

blueblue48

LOOOL! i accidentily got them from an LFS, now i have hundreds and hundreds of them in a 10 gallon! i dont even try and the reproduce like mad. its got a regular HOB filter, no sponge, and a small heater. i feed mine an algae disc once every 3 or 4 days depending on how much they eat.

It'sJames

Lucky.... I hope mine will take off like that. I'm trying to move them from a 10 gallon with icky pond critters and duck weed to a clean 1.5 gallon. There must be a better way... it's taking me forever to just get a couple dozen in there. Maybe I shouldn't be so cheap - buying a culture would be way easier.

Flashygrrl

lol, most starter cultures on aquabid are like $10-15 for 500+.....probably safer too. Some have free shipping. You could always put a wanted up in the classified too

tophat665

Everything you need to know about culturing Daphnia. This is the first thing that comes up on Google if you search Daphnia Culture. However, I would not have thought to do so had not this very link been posted on the forum for the aquarium society to which I belong.

http://www.caudata.org/daphnia/