Alternative feeding

[7santiago]

does anyone know any alternative feedings for utricularia other than the pond water thing, i have heard that baby sea monkeys can tollerate low sodium and there young are the perfect size.

 

[Clint]

ferts

 

[rattler]

what kind of Utrics? with terrestrials as long as the soil isnt completly submerged you will have fungus gnat larva weither you like it or not. i dont do anything to feed mine and they grow just fine. i dont have aquatic species though

 

[jimscott]

I have my aquatics in the plastic containers I use to collect rainwater. Fortunately or unfortunately, it also has mosquito larvae. Not sure if the are too big for the aquatics, though.

 

[7santiago]

misquito larve start from eggs layed on the surface of the water and they hatch into extremely small larva, smaller than daphnia,
they are only in the eddible size for a couple of days, correct me if im wrong.
terrestrials are fed by possible fungus gnats larva

 

[chloroplast]

I foliar feed my terrestrials once per month with half-strength orchid fertilizer. I do not fertilize my aquatic CPs because this will induce serious algal blooms (from experience).

I'd also be interested in someone posting an alternate to pond water for feeding aquatics such as aldrovanda or u.gibba. I live in an urban area and local ponds are likely filled with runoff and other pollutants toxic to CPs. My local petstores don't sell daphnia or other tiny aquatic creatures. As stated, I can't fertilize due to algae problems. Nonliving substances such as fish flakes and the like promote fungus and I don't think they're capable of triggering trap or bladder closure. I, too, am hard-pressed to think of other options.

I second 7santiago's question: IS THERE ANY OTHER WAY TO FEED AQUATICS!

Any and all feedback would be appreciated.

 

[Pyro]

Buy some daphnia from a fish store. Use an eye dropper to collect them individually with as little water as possible (serial pipetting works well here, i.e. suck up one with a full dropper of water and then expell it into a small contianer and then suck it up again with only as much water as it takes to catch the daphnia. Repeat until you basically only have the daphnia.) Then just drop them into the aquatic tank

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Quote[/b] ]I live in an urban area and local ponds are likely filled with runoff and other pollutants toxic to CPs.  My local petstores don't sell daphnia or other tiny aquatic creatures.  As stated, I can't fertilize due to algae problems.

Why don't you have special jars for them? Just get a big jar, add pond water and vegetation around the pond, maybe some mud, put some fertilizer in it, leave it in a well lit spot for a couple of weeks, and you'll have ostracods, maybe daphnia, copepods, etc.
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag....ml?http
Once I managed to get free swimming algae and i managed to isolate the daphnia, it was a piece of cake culturing them. I didn't really care, so now I don't have a CULTURE (there are still some in my utric jars) anymore, but if I had wanted to I could have kept them probably indefinately.

as for concentrating them, I took a turkey baster and sucked them all up, put them in a smaller jar, covered the turkey baster with a nylon stocking, and gently took the water out. Then I just dumped the concentrated daphnia into wherever I wanted them (I used them to feed my salamander larvae)

 

[7santiago]

now that i remember i have seen worn like insects in my lucky bamboo vase filled with water, wormens? i wonder if they can be fed to utricularia, and aqua-carivores by fear is that it could be a pest, they do tend to eat my precious bamboo roots

 

[Clint]

Welcome to the forums!

 

[chloroplast]

TheAlphaWolf,

Very nice. I may try this. A few additional questions:

1. What are the odds of cultivating organisms that EAT or are harmful to the aquatics if the water is from a pond that doesn't have aquatics growing in it? Have you run into this problem before?

2. Are daphnia visible to the naked eye? I ask because in my first (and failed) attempt with Aldrovanda, I attempted to grow it in water collected from a local pond. It wasn't the pond water per se that led to their demise, but a water mold problem to due negligence on my part (not enough water circulation). In any case, within a week of setup, there were large colonies growing 1-2" below the water surface consisting of very small, barely visible whitish organisms that were self-motile. I know very little about aquatic biology and don't have a microscope at home, so I wasn't able to ID them. Perhaps these were daphnia?

My main concern is with regard to question 1. If plain-old pondwater is unlikely to contain bugs that are a serious threat to my plants, then there's no need for question 2 (isolation).

Again, thanks for the good tips and link.

 

[7santiago]

I HATE ALGEA

!!!

so i grow my utrics in fish tanks with fish

ok heres a list of neat animals you can introduce to your aquatic utrics

aquatic snails, just one fresh water snail. per 1-5 gallons

and if you grow your utrics together or have A MONSTER SIZED utric you can add fresh water aglea eating fish they are extreamly efficiant at eliminating algea
warning!! get one fish for every 10-20 gallons

and if you can find fresh water mullosks( clams mussles ect.)
they eat free floating algea and filter water.

 

[Clint]

wouldn't the snails eat the utrics?

 

[7santiago]

land snails eat vegetation but aquatic snails dont, they eat algea that forms on rocks.

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Quote[/b] ]What are the odds of cultivating organisms that EAT or are harmful to the aquatics if the water is from a pond that doesn't have aquatics growing in it? Have you run into this problem before?

I haven't

Quote[/b] ]2. Are daphnia visible to the naked eye?

There are a bunch of species, but most are, at least if you have good vision. the biggest ones I've seen are about the size of the O. the smallest are smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

Quote[/b] ]In any case, within a week of setup, there were large colonies growing 1-2" below the water surface consisting of very small, barely visible whitish organisms that were self-motile

mold problem eh? did they actually SWIM? or could they just move? were they roundish little specks that glided aong the water or were they longer-looking? Daphnia many times swim with a jerky motion (many times, not all the time though). Ostracods swim very smoothly and most are seed shaped (rounded), and paramecium are longer-looking and also swim very smoothly. I was actually quite shocked they're visible to the naked eye since they're single cells.... or they could have also been copepods, which are torpeedo shaped and swim in a more jerky motion than daphnia.
since you said it was a mold problem, I'm guessing they were paramecium.
ostracod picture
copepod picture (with eggs)
paramecium picture
and I guess you've seen daphnia pictures already.

Quote[/b] ]ok heres a list of neat animals you can introduce to your aquatic utrics

You can also add tadpoles! lol. I found a bunch of eggs, I put three in my utric container (the rest died

) and they're eating the algae and other stuff.

Quote[/b] ]and if you can find fresh water mullosks( clams mussles ect.)
they eat free floating algea and filter water.

I really doubt that's a good idea. They like running water, and they need a lot of food. You'd have to be FEEDING the clams/mussels because unless you have a huge container (in relation to it's body size) it would filter out the water in no time.
And I like free swimming algae. They've never caused a problem with me, and are food of the daphnia. The only algae I've had problems with is the one that attaches to the utrics and smothers them.

 

[chloroplast]

Thanks, guys, for the helpful replies.

I can't quite remember the manner in which the microfauna were swimming. Irregardless, it seems to me (based on what's been said) that most of those tiny things are harmless to the aquatic CPs, so I'll just try culturing pond water and be satisfied with whatever grows. As long as it's not water mold or sessile algae--and I know what those look like!

As for larger animals, I might try a freshwater snail. If you don't mind, two questions about these:

1. The containers the aquatics are growing in have no lids. Will the snails know enough not to wander out of the containers and into my apartment (where they would become lost and most certainly die)?

2. Can they survive on anything other than algae (dead matter such as sphagnum moss and the like)? Fortunately, I'm growing these plants indoors under lights which reduces algal growth, as does the acidic peat water. So, I don't currently have much algae but would still like to get the snails as a "prophylaxis" for potential algal blooms. Is this wise?

Well, thanks again for the help.

 

[7santiago]

well,my aquatic snails are amphibians, they wonder seldomly out of water only to come back into the water seconds after, i belive it is a survival technique during droughts.
but that depends on the snail you get.
I keep then in a cheep plastic container with a lid feeding on algea pelets, and then weekly add three to the one gallon utrics tanks for a day, they eliminate the algea completely its amazing to see how such tiny creatures could help so much. as for the lid, buy a cheap picture frame and then use the glass from it, just keep it from the sun and heat for a day and it should be fine, oh also the snails use up all the oxygen in the water, a pioson for plants, and replace it with
Carbon dioxide, this will boost growth and health at an alarming rate.

 

[7santiago]

this reminds me, aldrovanda need cardon dioxide which can be added into the water with creatures or with fermintation, i once saw how to biuld this cardon reactor thing in a book but i desided to change it just a bit, it was just too hard to biuld.

ok you need

a baloon
yeast
sugar
pure water, no chemicals.

step one
check the ballon for holes, a hole will be catastrophic

Step two
add the sugar and the yeast, make sure this is a table spoon of yeast and two table spoons of sugar.

Step three
slowly add water to fill the ballon, there cant be any air

simply insurt the baloonnto the tank

the result the yeast produces cardon dioxide and the carbon dioxide escapes through the membrain of the balloon if it floats remove and throw away, this will cause the leak of alcohol.

JUst A fair warning IF THERE IS A HOLE IT WILL KILL THE PLANT!!!!!!!!!!!

for a harder way to do this cunsult Carnivorous plants by tony camilleri .

 

[7santiago]

oops

i forgot tie the balloon

 

[TheAlphaWolf]

Quote[/b] ]2. Can they survive on anything other than algae (dead matter such as sphagnum moss and the like)?

I have boring old pond snails (the little ones) and they eat dead fish, fish food, and other stuff. I also had an aquarium snail back when I was a kid, and it ate a fish that died.