Live food found out n about?

[Sophia]

I can see your photos but that wasn't what I meant. It's OK, I will get my glasses out and have a better look at mine 8)

thanks anyhoo

[blueether]

I can see your photos but that wasn't what I meant. It's OK, I will get my glasses out and have a better look at mine 8)

thanks anyhoo

That's not what I meant either :oops:. What I should have said was: Do any of these three photos, with more lifelike sizing help with your identification?

[Sophia]

hehe we no speeakee engleesh

now you mention it, the one with the ovaries that Stella says is a copepod, is that greenery around her body? In real life are your copepods green?

If so then I think I have those but I just can't see the tail bit as they swim. In my video they are the blackish seed pod dots zipping about in amongst the rest.

[blueether]

The daphnia look light - medium brown and swim quite smoothly for having a common name of water fleas

The copepod look very light brown/grey to almost white and swin in little jerks/twitches, in some of the macro shots they do look to have a green tint - I would guess their guts fill of green algae?

The copepod look to only be about 1/2 - 2/3 the size of the (large (female?))daphnia

[Neon]

Hi Blueether - I like your photos! Is that a torrentfish in your avatar?

And thanks Stella for your IDs.... I'd been wondering what some of the critters I've collected from my pond were.

Only problem is that copepods seem too cute to feed to the fish now :lol:

Sophia - I found that if you pour the collection of greeblies into a plastic takeway container then they're easier to view...

[Sophia]

thanks

[blueether]

Hi Blueether - I like your photos! Is that a torrentfish in your avatar?

Thanks, spent yesterday trying to get some nice shots of the daphnia and copepod instead of doing up the front room... SWMBO was not too impressed :oops:

And yes that is Stanley the torrentfish.

[Stella]

now you mention it, the one with the ovaries that Stella says is a copepod, is that greenery around her body? In real life are your copepods green?

If so then I think I have those but I just can't see the tail bit as they swim. In my video they are the blackish seed pod dots zipping about in amongst the rest.

they be ostracods, also known as seed shrimps

Think about them like a daphnia enclosed in a mussel shell. Ostracods have a bivalve shell on the outside, and it opens just a crack for their tiny legs to peep out and do the swimming. They come in a multitude of colours and sizes and look just like little seeds swimming around.

The name is interesting. The word has the root in 'ostraca' which was Greek for broken pottery or tiles. Once a year they would banish from the Athens the person who was thought to be most dangerous to the security of the State. They did this in a democratic way (of course!), voting by writing the name of their choice on pieces of ostraca. The 'winner' got exiled for 10 years, and their belongings confiscated. Hence the word 'ostracism'!

Ostraca can also mean shells, hence ostracods.

(man I am too geeky! but hey, you won't forget the name in a hurry. I always have to remember the root to tell if something is an ostracod or copepod)

[Sophia]

Thank you Stella. I liked the story

Now I know what's what of the big ones, so I definitely have daphnia (I should have realised earlier as they are the same colour as the dried ones I feed the fish), and ostracods and now I can also recognise the copepods too. There are some other critters that are smaller than daphnia even but it's impossible to identify those ones, they might be mini ostracods.

I left a bucket of water out yesterday to condition itself and today transfered the remaining survivors from the original supply (copepods had mostly all died today). Then I went back to the trough and got me some more bugs and a few bits of leaf and twig from the area - thus presenting my first bucket biotope of a sheep trough in Cornwall Park :lol: Aside from the fact that it's in a plastic bucket and that I fed them tropical fish flakes, it's quite environmentally correct. Next thing is to get my husband to make me a basic stand for a small tank and set it up in the garage. It gets a little direct sunlight in there but should I give them a light? Something simple like a normal lightbulb, I was thinking of.

[Zev]

I have daphnia in an AquaStart 320, I have covered the light unit with tinfoil and poked a few holes in it because I am making a blackwater biotope, the daphnia like to congregate in the shafts of light and are rather partial to very finely crushed flake.

[Sophia]

that's a good idea, very creative

does the foil heat the light unit up much?

[Zev]

Don't know!

Will check tonight and let you know.