daphnia? advise please!

[repru04]

I really don't know anything about this so someone please give me some advice. I got a 32 gal outdoor trash can, put it outside and filled it with water. I'm planning on adding IAL to it and using it for my aquariums. It is my understanding I can put a handful of grass in water that's kept outside and daphnia will grow. Is this true? I'm not going to do anything with it yet until I get advise. BTW, the water will be sitting in the sun and I live in the desert so it's going to get pretty hot. I'm going to breed soon so I'm wanting to get the food set up beforehand. Would it be better to just but daphnia, or grow some in a seperate container? Oh and the trashcan is black.

[Sena Hansler]

If you grab live plants from a pet store, and give them food such as fish food (I've also heard about yeast? Idk.) they'll grow and flourish. They always seem to pop up in my breeding tanks so I never had to worry about it.

For my fry I have:

Microworms. I get a culture, and keep it going.
Decapsulated BBS: This stuff isn't live, but I shipped it in from ebay :)
Daphnia: I usually have they skulking in my breeder tank when I have live plants!
Frozen mini-bloodworms: for when they are bigger!!
Hikari first bites: to transition them into the small-adult world :)

[repru04]

Live plants in the water? What about keeping the water covered? I was planning on covering it to keep out insects and slow evaporation.

[Sena Hansler]

I used syran wrap =D it kept it humid and bug free

[repru04]

Good idea!!! Thank you.