jen's everyday blog

Colouring Daphnia

One aspect of Daphnia that gave me pause, on the video front, is their see-through nature. Apparently, however, it is possible to colour the Daphnia by feeding them coloured food (makes sense, since they’re see-through). I found this tantalizing snippet on google: “Eating the stained yeast will color the Daphnia red. For changing other Daphnia to different colors, prepare the yeast solutions with different stains or …” but unfortunately I don’t have access to the actual page because it’s through a subscription site. I found another question and answer page that talks about feeding them paprika. Here’s an article that suggests basically dipping them in a dilute dye solution. And here’s a page that does specifically mention dyeing the yeast with a red food dye. Here’s someone asking about using something to permanently stain their carapace, which might be a good plan, since I suspect the food moves in and out fairly quickly.

posted at 14:51 on Mon, 04 Dec, 2006 | path: /school



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