Cultivating phyto inside our DT

[ScottR]

Of course you can buy and cultivate your own live phyto to add to your tank. But our tanks grow a lot of algae, regardless. So when we scrape our glass and that powdery film releases into the tank, do our filter feeders and other inhabitants get a rush of phyto just as they would if we added in cultivated phyto? How is it any different? Hopefully someone can chime in. I’ve wondered this countless times.

 

[Gareth elliott]

erase i should sleep before posting lol

 

[Doctorgori]

man Phyto goes bad so easily....I think its usually bacterial contamination ...heck even bleaching everything doesn't keep the cultures going for long....I reset with fresh cultures from the fridge every 4-5x ...I have cultured it in my greenhouse, but same deal..,

 

[Justfebreezeit]

If I had to make an uneducated guess I'd say your typical phyto is smaller micron size.

 

[TheShrimpNibbler]

If you are referring to the film algae, I believe it is kind of the same thing. Many of the algae in phytoplankton also grow on rocks, including diatoms and dinoflagellates. Pods eat lots of this algae on the glass and rocks. I could be wrong, but I think that film algae are micro algae just like phytoplankton. The only thing that might make me think otherwise is particle size. Especially if small pieces of the algae stuck together as the came off the wall.

 

[serwobow]

I have wondered the same thing. And I think they are probably equivalent in terms of nutritional value and the things that eat them, especially when they are both suspended in the tank. Dosing phyo probably just adds more of the same in those terms. Even quantity-wise, scraping the glass may give a similar dose compared to a typical dose of phyto. However, most feed phyto every day, and glass scraping is less often. So phyto just adds more to the base of the food chain.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Of course you can buy and cultivate your own live phyto to add to your tank. But our tanks grow a lot of algae, regardless. So when we scrape our glass and that powdery film releases into the tank, do our filter feeders and other inhabitants get a rush of phyto just as they would if we added in cultivated phyto? How is it any different? Hopefully someone can chime in. I’ve wondered this countless times.

To busy to say hi, to your comrades, but not to busy for starting a thread. Hahaha

 

[User]

For me the powdery stuff is diatoms and cyano, lol

most phytoplankton doesn't attach to a substrate, so wouldn't be found on theglass

If I had to make an uneducated guess I'd say your typical phyto is smaller micron size.

nannochloropsis is 2 microns. That's typically the smallest algae we see. Others are quite a bitbigger. 15-30 microns

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I used to have my refugiums outside, next to the display tank inside the room. For a while I was getting green algae then I didn't keep up with it and it turned to the brown diatoms, the corals still enjoyed it.

 

[User]

man Phyto goes bad so easily....I think its usually bacterial contamination ...heck even bleaching everything doesn't keep the cultures going for long....I reset with fresh cultures from the fridge every 4-5x ...I have cultured it in

The key is sterility. Keep everything that touches the culture clean- prewipe with isopropanol or ethanol, no inadvertent contact with surfaces etc.

I had the same nanno culture going 5 months at a 6 day 1:4 split ratio. It’s possible to do long term. But I set my system up to be as hands free as possible- no opening bottles and pouring out for example, it’s all valves and tubes. Tubing etc is used for that one session, then gets washed, ethanol rinsed, rodi rinse then in a ziplock.

Helps if you’re trained in growing mammalian cell cultures though, I guess. I don’t think many people appreciate that a 1/2 second surface contact of the lid or tubing end will pick up literally thousands of bacteria.

 

[ScottR]

If I had to make an uneducated guess I'd say your typical phyto is smaller micron size.

There are so many types of algae in our tanks. I have brown, green, small hairy type, coralline, and probably lots of others. I’m sure each type is a food for something. Just wondering if and why cultured phyto is superior or not.

 

[User]

If you are referring to the film algae, I believe it is kind of the same thing. Many of the algae in phytoplankton also grow on rocks, including diatoms and dinoflagellates. Pods eat lots of this algae on the glass and rocks. I could be wrong, but I think that film algae are micro algae just like phytoplankton. The only thing that might make me think otherwise is particle size. Especially if small pieces of the algae stuck together as the came off the wall.

Phytoplankton is a specific subset of unicellular algae species that occasionally form chains (the way Cyanobacteria does). Diatoms and dinoflagellates are separate classes of organism. The green film algae people see when they scrape off their glass isn’t phytoplankton per se, since it’s a more complex algae species (unless it’s cyano) but it does add to the food chain and diversity in the tank.

If your dosing eg nannochloropsis, 20ml of a thick culture is hundreds of billions of cells. Way more than is produced by scraping the glass. You’d need dozens of square feet totally covered in biofilm to come remotely close

 

[ScottR]

Phytoplankton is a specific subset of unicellular algae species that occasionally form chains (the way Cyanobacteria does). Diatoms and dinoflagellates are separate classes of organism. The green film algae people see when they scrape off their glass isn’t phytoplankton per se, since it’s a more complex algae species (unless it’s cyano) but it does add to the food chain and diversity in the tank.

If your dosing eg nannochloropsis, 20ml of a thick culture is hundreds of billions of cells. Way more than is produced by scraping the glass. You’d need dozens of square feet totally covered in biofilm to come remotely close

I get where you’re going, but are you hinting that cyano is an algae?

 

[Dave Garrett]

Almost every coral in my tank show feeding response when I am cleaning the algae off my glass... I do believe they are feeding on the small particles and dusting of algae... The Acans in my tank seems to really show this behavior

 

[User]

I get where you’re going, but are you hinting that cyano is an algae?

No

I was referencing the way it makes chains

KInda like saying “frogs jump in a hopping fashion, kinda like kangaroos”

“Some phyto makes chains, the way cyano does”. I picked cyano because everyone with a reef is familiar with the name and the fact it makes chains of single cells

 

[ScottR]

No

I was referencing the way it makes chains

KInda like saying “frogs jump in a hopping fashion, kinda like kangaroos”

“Some phyto makes chains, the way cyano does”. I picked cyano because everyone with a reef is familiar with the name and the fact it makes chains of single cells

So the film - that is a more complex species - isn’t good for the tank basically?

 

[User]

So the film - that is a more complex species - isn’t good for the tank basically?

I’m not sure why it’s being interpreted like that. I was just pointing out ‘phytoplankton’ means a specific thing whereas I’m seeing people refer to anything small and algae like floating around as being phytoplankton

My guess is that the majority of whatever is in a tank is part of a food chain and therefore ‘good’ for the ecosystem. Other than overt parasites of course, although they too have predators.

I’m sure whatever people are scraping off the glass, something will utilize it, even if that something is a copepod eating some 2micron phyto or my yellow tang eating the green film algae.

 

[YankeeTankee]

If live phyto is added to a tank, will it grow/reproduce and remain in the tank or does it die or get eaten quickly in a tank of average stocking level?

 

[cjpitt80]

Helps if you’re trained in growing mammalian cell cultures though, I guess. I don’t think many people appreciate that a 1/2 second surface contact of the lid or tubing end will pick up literally thousands of bacteria.

Yeah, I've done rodent primary neuronal cell cultures before. Autoclave EVERYTHING

 

[ZoWhat]

I gotta find the video someone posted on Monday. It was a State of California Marine Coral Bioloist that had long hair but spoke in a high soft voice.

He said, given all the complexity ..... coral growth basically boils down to the Zooxanthellae inside the coral getting Nitrates fed to them from the deep ocean and how it uses the nitrate and the Sun to produce Zooxanthellae algae inside every coral.

It was a great video. 90% of it waaaay over my head. but most of it made sense when talking about "the end game" of growing Zooxanthellae