Culturing and feeding Phytoplankton to Coral, Pods and Fish

NDIrish · Jul 28, 2020

When can you tell when the phyto culture is ready?
Tomorrow, 7/29 it will be a week.

Dilan Patel · Jul 28, 2020

look at my second pic. It should be a nice dark green. When lit you should not be able to see through it.

NDIrish · Jul 28, 2020

Guess tomorrow I will harvest it. The bottle marked 7/22.
The other bottle is a gallon container. Don't think I put enough f/2 in it.

sde1500 · Oct 31, 2020

Finally got around to restarting my phyto cultures. Nanno and Tetra compliments of Mercer of Montana. Looking forward to seeing how this set up works out.

Dilan Patel · Oct 31, 2020

I started with mercer and it works well. make sure to steralize stuff being used I use alcohol

HighChiefKC · May 31, 2021

For you guys using Mercer, I’m trying them out after not having much success with Poseidon. Kept crashing after my 3rd harvest every time I started with new culture.
anyway, with Mercer, their phyto seems a lot darker green. After 2nd day, I get a lot settling on the bottom of the jar and the water is clearer up top. I shake the jar a little and it all turns dark green again. Is this normal?

Brad Miller · May 31, 2021

You shouldn’t be getting the settling after only the 2nd day.
do you have enough air injection to keep the culture in suspension ?

HighChiefKC · Jun 1, 2021

Brad Miller said:
You shouldn’t be getting the settling after only the 2nd day.
do you have enough air injection to keep the culture in suspension ?

Well I would have thought so, I have the air valve all the way open, it’s non stop bubbles. I’ve wondered if the tube inside was almost too long, it’s pressed all the way against the bottom of the container, maybe I should trim it off a hair?

fryman · Jun 10, 2021

HighChiefKC said:
For you guys using Mercer, I’m trying them out after not having much success with Poseidon. Kept crashing after my 3rd harvest every time I started with new culture.
anyway, with Mercer, their phyto seems a lot darker green. After 2nd day, I get a lot settling on the bottom of the jar and the water is clearer up top. I shake the jar a little and it all turns dark green again. Is this normal?

Sounds like your culture is contaminated with cyano. I recommend checking under a microscope. Synechococcus (sp?) is darker green than nanno or tetraselmis, grows faster and gets more dense. It also settles faster and can get kind of "slimy" when it settles out. Phyto (especially nanno) can settle with no agitation but it takes more than a couple days.

Unless you have a microscope you can't really tell the difference between phyto and cyano cultures.

Under a microscope, nanno is small ~4micron spheres. Tetraselmis is larger oval-shaped, ~15 x 10 microns and moves around with a flagella. Synechococcus is tiny and you won't be able to see individual cells unless under high mag (250× or more).

HighChiefKC · Jun 15, 2021

fryman said:
Sounds like your culture is contaminated with cyano. I recommend checking under a microscope. Synechococcus (sp?) is darker green than nanno or tetraselmis, grows faster and gets more dense. It also settles faster and can get kind of "slimy" when it settles out. Phyto (especially nanno) can settle with no agitation but it takes more than a couple days.

Unless you have a microscope you can't really tell the difference between phyto and cyano cultures.

Under a microscope, nanno is small ~4micron spheres. Tetraselmis is larger oval-shaped, ~15 x 10 microns and moves around with a flagella. Synechococcus is tiny and you won't be able to see individual cells unless under high mag (250× or more).

I started a new batch. And this time instead of using water out of my 100g storage tank, I used it straight out of the RODI unit. Seems to be doing better with almost no settling.

Daniel@R2R · Jun 30, 2022

sde1500 said:
Finally got around to restarting my phyto cultures. Nanno and Tetra compliments of Mercer of Montana. Looking forward to seeing how this set up works out.

That's a really nice setup!

Dinkins Aquatic Gardens · Jul 2, 2022

In my experience, the phyto is ready to harvest when it's almost completely black. I usually dose 50% more F2 than normal (1.5 ml per L) and let it go for 12 days on an 18/6 lighting cycle.

Adele · Sep 3, 2022

I am using a Nano culture from Mercer. Was wondering, when looking at a sample under a microscope (sample was from refrigerated dosing batch) the phyto was pretty dense but not motile. Is that normal for Nano or is my culture “dead” and not useful?

fryman · Sep 3, 2022

Adele said:
I am using a Nano culture from Mercer. Was wondering, when looking at a sample under a microscope (sample was from refrigerated dosing batch) the phyto was pretty dense but not motile. Is that normal for Nano or is my culture “dead” and not useful?

Nano is non-motile. But many have synechococcus take over and they look similar. See pics for comparison:

FlyingMonkey · Sep 21, 2022

CreatiVe2 said:
I grow the same culture from mercer and feed my pod culture with it, and they really flourish. As others have said, the DT and refugiums really benefit due to the added mico fauna. Plus Clams and NPS coral will thrive. The type of plankton we add to our tanks does not contribute to added nitrates, or negative parameter directly. Indirectly i would assume the elevated parameter could come from the fauna increasing which would directly increase the waste they produce. How much though? probably undetectable in most of our systems, but it is always a good idea to test more when adding a steady culture of phyto to the tanks.
However I have fabricated a custom 3d printed phyto grow pod with oxo flip lock containers. I DO make these for people and if you are interested please PM me, I run 4 off of 1 power supply.

Hello. Looks like it's been a while, but do you still make these, and what do you charge? Also, if you do still make them, can you print them in black? Thanks!