Nature Crafts and Critters-Nanaimo, BC

Probably the easiest cultures to maintain are what comes naturally from the yard during spring through fall seasons in the northwest. Culturing them is as simple as placing out a bucket of clean water or a tray of clean water and leaving it to sit for a few days. You can use tap water as the chlorine will naturally dissipate with time. Mosquito Larvae In just a few days you will see tiny black floating bits often at the edge of the container. If you look closely, they look like tiny pieces of charcoal. Those are mosquito egg rafts! Each egg raft looks like a tiny grain of wild rice. The rafts break apart easily. Each raft contains 50-100 eggs. Photo below is 60X magnification. I have a small clip on magnifier for my phone. In each raft, there are hundreds of eggs. When they are first laid, the rafts are white. Within about 8-10 hours, they gradually turn darker and then to black. Wait about 24-36 hours (depending on temperature) and they will hatch into the tiniest of wiggling insect l...

Daphnia can be a great food for may species of fish and small aquatic critters. They are relatively easy to culture if you know a few things about them. Their cultures tend to crash when the water temperatures go outside of a certain range and the water quality declines too far. They can be fun to culture on their own as a school project as well! In the photo above, the yellow is the digestive tract. The black is a forming egg. The second photo is the top view. The antennae they use to swim with can be seen. Tips 1 to 3: 1. For a steady supply, always have at least two cultures going, each placed in a different location. That way, if one culture crashes, you can rely on the other until the crashed one is back up and running. 2. Once you have an established culture, collect the tiny black triangular eggs that float on the surface before they sink. Dry them and save them in a container at room temperature. When immersed in water, they should hatch within 2 weeks. 3. You don't need ma...