NOOB question— daphnia and ostracods (seed shrimp) are different, right?

[DirtyPaws949]

Hi folks!
I’ve been on a live-food-culture bender.

I’ve always had amphipods, ostracods, copepods, detritus worms, planaria (not ideal, however the small fish love it when when I empty the planaria traps from the shrimp tanks into theirs for them to chow on). Okay, not always, but they’ve just been acquired over time. Some plastic fish-less bins have a couple species of leeches (they’re really neat and I like having them— bio-nerd here).
I have about 10 species of cockroaches for my larger fish, probably 2 types of beetles (though I’m not currently culturing the mealworms, they’re just in the compost bin).

The larger fish, loaches, and pea puffers also enjoy their Skittles (snails). I have apple snails (egg clutch was bought on eBay as mystery snail eggs- this species is STRICTLY for food), mystery snails (I usually sell these ones), MTS, pond/bladder snails, ramshorn snails.

I recently started up blackworm, microworm, banana worm, Walter worm, grindal worms, white worms, & vinegar eel cultures.
I saw someone on CL selling daphnia cultures (12oz for $10, 5-gal bucket for $30).
I’m interested and pretty confident they’re different from ostracods, but wanted to make sure.

While on the topic... if anyone else knows of fun, easy-ish live foods to culture that aren’t listed above, I’d love some recommendations.

 

[LimeCat]

Yes they are different. You can see visibly because of how they swim, daphnia beat their (antennae?) and have a jerky up-down movement in the water column. The seed shrimp I have just kind of swim around near surfaces.

 

[DirtyPaws949]

Yes they are different. You can see visibly because of how they swim, daphnia beat their (antennae?) and have a jerky up-down movement in the water column. The seed shrimp I have just kind of swim around near surfaces.

Okay cool, thank you ?
The ostracods swim around like drunk sailors, yet are too tiny to really discern what body part they’re moving with haha.
Is it okay to put some in my 7.5gal blackworm tank (a few pond snails and a hoard of copepods are in there as well).
I’ll keep the majority of the culture in a 5gal bucket on their own.
Might as well start making separate culture tanks/bins/buckets as well, eventually. Right now the aquatic cooties are just spread out in various places.

 

[LimeCat]

I’ll keep the majority of the culture in a 5gal bucket on their own.
Might as well start making separate culture tanks/bins/buckets as well, eventually. Right now the aquatic cooties are just spread out in various places.

No idea. I have seed shrimp, copepods, and amphipods together breeding a gallon jar. But if you're raising them for food you might have to worry about population bottlenecks with that many different things (the copepods crash when the daphnia population explodes etc.)

 

[DirtyPaws949]

No idea. I have seed shrimp, copepods, and amphipods together breeding a gallon jar. But if you're raising them for food you might have to worry about population bottlenecks with that many different things (the copepods crash when the daphnia population explodes etc.)

yes, I’ve learned to never put all my eggs is one basket. I try to have at least two cultures of everything. The ostracods, copepods, amphipods, planaria, detritus worms... they all just happened to find their way into wherever they are (except when introduced as food).
I have 10 aquariums, but ~20 plastic bins for plants/ snails/ critters. Right now local frogs are using the bins as nurseries for their tadpoles, like they do every year. Fuggers even get into the 7.5gal blackworm tank ? I’m looking at the frog who’s claimed that “territory” and I’m pretty sure s/he just pigged out.

I am a little worried that the 5.5gal has too much going on, and the 7.5gal is pretty thick with worms as well. I’m getting another 5.5gal tank friday, and will start moving the larger shrimps to that, along with the snails, til they all eventually grow out, then I’ll just be left with the blackworms, amphipods, and other cooties in the original 5.5to disperse them thru some of the bins and start a designated amphipods culture (they’re thriving in the shrimp tank currently).

I also made the mistake of putting the blackworms on too fine a substrate, so it’s a PITA to harvest them. After moving them around I’m going to get fire-pit lava rock since it’s a much bigger diameter.

a lot of work, but so much fun