Moina Macrocopa

I saw a few reviews saying these eggs didn’t hatch, but I can confirm: they absolutely do hatch if you follow the right setup. I had Moina swimming around in less than 24 hours! Please read this before you try—it will save you frustration and wasted eggs: 1. Use clean, dechlorinated tap water. Avoid pure RO or distilled water—they lack essential minerals. Tap water is perfect unless your water is from a well or has very high pH. If your water is too alkaline (above ~8.5), you may have trouble hatching. 2. Water depth: Keep water at about 3–4 inches deep. Shallow water improves light penetration and oxygen exchange. 3. Light is critical: Place the container near a window with good indirect sunlight, or use a daylight-spectrum bulb (white light) about 3–4 inches above the container. Aim for 12–16 hours of light daily. I used an old aquarium white LED light. Yellow light is not as good. 4. Temperature: Around 75–85°F works best. Room temperature worked well for me. 5. Let the eggs float: Floating is normal and helpful! Don’t try to sink them. The eggs hatch best near the surface with light and warmth. 6. No aeration needed: I didn’t use any air pump or aeration, and they still hatched fine. Aeration might help, but it’s optional. 7. Don’t overdo the eggs! I used an entire capsule because of some other reviews, and it was way too much. I wish I had not done that. Half of one capsule is plenty to start a good culture. 8. Be patient: Hatch time is usually 24–72 hours, but I saw mine start moving in under 24! 9. Feed once they hatch: Use chlorella powder or pure spirulina powder, dissolved in water. Start with a very small amount—just enough to lightly cloud the water. Don’t overfeed! I’m really happy with the results. If you follow these steps, you should get a great hatch too. Don’t let the negative reviews discourage you!

It's day 11 and nothing has hatched, at all. I used the capsules between 4 containers. I wanted to experiment and see which hatched out best. 2 Reverse Osmosis and 2 tap water (well water with a whole home filter system and treated with tap water conditioner). 1 R/O and 1 tap were under a heat light (water temp 82°F) and the other 2 were room temperature (72-75°F). All containers are under a grow light (with my plants). NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING has hatched. When day 14 rolls around without anything hatching, I'm packing up the empty capsules and sending them back for a refund. UPDATE: It is now day 14 and NOTHING has hatched. I just noticed that this item isn't returnable. So, I'm out $15 (taxes included). I just sent an email to Green Water Farm and I'll update if they reply. UPDATE: 03/02/2023 They finally started hatching about 2 weeks ago, so it took about 4 weeks to hatch. Not everything, but enough to start a culture if they survive. The ones that hatched were in a small bowl with R/O water at room temperature around 72°F (no heat light). I took advice from an old forum thread from someone who cultures them on a large scale and have been feeding them Sweet Potato baby food. About 1 tablespoon into a bottle of water (a regular sized drinking water bottle) and shake it up. I put about a tablespoon of that mix into the culture every day. They actually swarm to it. I also dump it into my daphnia cultures and they're populations are booming. I mix new food every day, and toss the baby food after a few days. I also top off the bowl with water from one of my Daphnia cultures. Every few days, I carefully siphon out 1/4 water with a turkey baster and scrutinize it for baby Moina and replace the water with fresh R/O water. It'll take a hour to do, lol. Once the babies get a little bigger, I'll transfer them into a larger container with an air pump--no stone--just air line with a regulator turned down to a couple of bubbles per second. I also would like to thank Sprite from Green Water Farms. I reached out to tell them that nothing had hatched and he sent me a new pack of eggs. I'll keep them in the fridge until I need to hatch them.

Update - I have kept the culture alive for 4 months now. I have changed how I culture it, instead of a 5 gallon bucket I use a few 1/2 gallon juice bottle. I use mostly chlorella culture to feed and propagate the moina. Every day I completely empty one bottle on a mini coffee filter and feed that to my fish. Then I fill the empty bottle with chlorella culture - the moina that stay stuck on the bottle are enough to repopulate that bottle in about a week. I have anywhere from fresh bottles and about week old bottles. If needed, I supplement feeding with a solution containing brewer yeast, spirulina and chickpea flour. Original post: Eggs hatched as expected. I used only about 1/3 of one vial in a 5 gallon bucket and had a lot of moina, in a population that did not crash right away. I am feeding them chlorella from a culture I started about 2 weeks before I started the moina. I have been keeping them for about 3 weeks and I feed my fish about 3 times per week. My fish - mostly tetras, rasboras and Corys love the live food!

None of the eggs hatched this time .

Great product with clear instructions. Love that the manufacture date and best before date is printed on the box, so you know it's not some old stock. I've cultured Daphnia Pulex for couple of years now, and decided to give Moina a try because of it's size. Newborns are smaller than a seed shrimp...it wouldn't surprise me if some of the "none hatched" reviewers simply just didn't see them, and gave up lol It's almost impossible to not overfeed when you're starting a new culture with a small population, so I decided to use green water. I didn't have to feed them for the first week, the green water only started to clear up on the 8th day. Which means the population is now big enough to consume algae faster than it can grow. I'd highly recommend everyone to do the same. Here's some more detail. Setup: One full capsule of eggs, 10 gallon tank with green water @ 26c/78.8f, 16hrs of light per day, big bubbles (1-2 bubbles/s, to keep the algae suspended, and to prevent protein film from forming at the surface) Day 1-2 (Nov 7-8): Nothing happened Day 3-4 (Nov 9-10): ~25% hatched, found 2 fairy shrimps! (Baby fairy shrimps look like a tiny white caterpillar/fluffy floating string...at first I though it was some type of parasite...) Day 5-6 (Nov 11-12): ~60% hatched, found 2 more fairy shrimps :D Day 7 (Nov 13): At this point there's probably a thousand moinas in the tank, most are newborns. It's impossible to tell which of those are hatched from the eggs or reproduced. I'd say 70% hatch rate is a fair estimate. Not sure what I'll do with those fairy shrimps, but it seems I can just leave them in the same tank and feed them just like I would with daphnia/moina. Nonetheless, I feel very lucky considering that quite a few people who specifically bought fairy shrimp eggs couldn't get them to hatch lol

Good hatch rate abt 70 to 80 percent.

Meinen ersten Versuch habe ich leider in die Blumen gegossen 😂 weil ich dachte da schlüpft nix. Aber man muss genau hinsehen, oben schwimmen die leeren Hüllen aus denen sie kommen und darunter sehr klein die Wasserflöhe. Zum Füttern hab ich Hefe oder Haferflocken verwendet. Viel Spaß beim nachmachen.

Ich habe schon bei verschiedenen Hersteller bzw. Lieferanten Moina-Eier gekauft. Nur mit diesen Moina-Eiern ist auch ein Schlupf geglückt. Kann ich also empfehlen!