Culturing Phytoplankton

[SMSREEF]

This is an awesome thread! Thanks @CJO

I’m going to try culturing phyto and pods.

Question for everyone, If I was to do this in my garage (I live in Miami). Would this work? Winter low temps are gonna be 50 at the lowest and summer probably 95 degrees. Day and night temps will fluctuate quite a bit too.

Or do I need to find a place with stable temps inside?

thanks for you help!

 

[Blutspitze]

Stupid question - you all mention putting the phyto in the fridge incase of a crash . Is that to go into your tank or is that to start a new culture ?

When I harvest the phyto every 8 days, the phyto for dosing the tank goes in the fridge. I dose about 100ml per day of the stock from the fridge.

during the harvest, I only take about half of the phyto, so I add new saltwater to the half that remains and add a little more fertilizer and that half grows a new batch to be harvested in 8 more days

incidentally I have had a batch crash, and I was able to use the stock in The fridge to start another batch.

Just wanted to second @dhof . For me, I harvest ~80% of what's in the jars every week. My innoculate is only around 50 mL. Add the fertilizer and it grows like wildfire. I've used what's in the fridge for both culture restarting and feeding the tank. It's marginally less expensive than having to buy bottled phyto every few weeks.

This is an awesome thread! Thanks @CJO

I’m going to try culturing phyto and pods.

Question for everyone, If I was to do this in my garage (I live in Miami). Would this work? Winter low temps are gonna be 50 at the lowest and summer probably 95 degrees. Day and night temps will fluctuate quite a bit too.

Or do I need to find a place with stable temps inside?

thanks for you help!

Best advice is to control it as much as possible. Don't rely on ambient temperature especially. In general, whatever lights you use will keep the temp relatively steady, but if you calibrate a culture to hit ~78 in ambient winter temps of 50, then come summer's 95 the culture would be way too hot.

It may work, but as someone who's also in Florida, the culture wouldn't do well. The nice thing is that you don't need much, material-wise. The start of the thread is a great how-to, and there's several other folks who shared their setups.

 

[SMSREEF]

Just wanted to second @dhof . For me, I harvest ~80% of what's in the jars every week. My innoculate is only around 50 mL. Add the fertilizer and it grows like wildfire. I've used what's in the fridge for both culture restarting and feeding the tank. It's marginally less expensive than having to buy bottled phyto every few weeks.



Best advice is to control it as much as possible. Don't rely on ambient temperature especially. In general, whatever lights you use will keep the temp relatively steady, but if you calibrate a culture to hit ~78 in ambient winter temps of 50, then come summer's 95 the culture would be way too hot.

It may work, but as someone who's also in Florida, the culture wouldn't do well. The nice thing is that you don't need much, material-wise. The start of the thread is a great how-to, and there's several other folks who shared their setups.

Thanks for the info. I will find a place inside.

 

[tthomas]

Does it matter what type of light or bulb you use? Better with a grow bulb for plants or just LED's or any light source?

 

[Blutspitze]

Does it matter what type of light or bulb you use? Better with a grow bulb for plants or just LED's or any light source?

I personally used an LED strip. You really want to make sure that whatever light you use has the right spectrum. Daylight LEDs are cheap and work well. Grow lights should be fine but are expensive. The common yellow-ish, "soft white" lights don't work too well.

 

[Jeeperz]

Ok, I'm having issues. I started a culture based on Mercer of Montana. 10 days later I harvested 1/4 and started a new culture, dumped the rest. 2 days later my new culture went clear. Who has success and what, exactly, are you doing? P.M. me if you want. I'm trying to raise phyto to raise pods, I'm having issues with pods too. Will start a new culture tomorrow. Please help. Trying to supplement my girlfriend's biota Mandarin, little thing does eat frozen, thankfully.

 

[John Rebman]

Phytoplankton Culture Procedure

Materials needed

Nannochloropsis only

• Source of clean saltwater at 1.019 SG
• Flexible airline
• Hard airline
• Culture container(s) and stopper(s)
• Phytoplankton Inoculant
• Micro Algae Grow
• Measuring syringe
• Airflow adjuster
• Light source
• Timer

Other phytoplankton- all the above plus

• Airline splitter if culturing several vessels (recommend the metal ones for fresh water)
• 0.2 micron air filter (only if culturing other than just Nannochloropsis)
• Silicate (if growing diatoms)
• TW only- source of clean saltwater at 1.025-1.026 SG

If reusing culturing vessels and tubing

• Cleaning brush
• Alconox or other residue-free soap (if not acid washing)
• Chlorine (recommend spa or pool granulated chlorine)
• Chlorine test strips
• De-chlorinator (sodium thiosulfate or commercial product)
• Muriatic or hydrochloric acid (optional, but recommended)
• Quick disconnects (nice to have, but don’t need)

From left to right- muriatic acid, sodium thiosulfate, granulated chlorine, chlorine test strips (on top of chlorine container), measuring pipette, liquid micro algae grow, culture vessel, Alconox soap


Setup

Culture Vessel Setup

The setup is fairly simple, especially if you are only culturing Nannochloropsis. The first step is getting your culture vessel(s) ready. Drill two 7/32†holes in the top and insert the rigid airline tubing. Put the top on the culture vessel and push down the rigid airline tubing until it hits the bottom of the culture vessel. Cut the tubing off about 2-1/2†above the top of the vessel. You can use some heat (I used a soldering torch) to bend the airline. This is your inlet tube. Then put in a short piece of hard airline tubing for the outlet vent and bend it in a U shape so that nothing can fall in. Raise inlet airline tubing a little from bottom of vessel so that it’s not touching the bottom.


Next, connect flexible airline tubing between inlet airline and airflow adjuster and connect another piece between airflow adjuster and air pump. Optional- add quick disconnect between airflow adjuster and rigid airline to make the removal of the culture vessel easier. If culturing several types of phyto, add .2 micron air filter between airflow adjuster (or quick disconnect if you have it) and the rigid airline to help prevent cross contamination.


Culturing Area Setup

Set up a 5 gal white bucket
Attach lighting fixture into scrap 2x4
Screw in a bright light bulb (I use 150W comparable fluorescent light)


Culture Setup


The base culture water is simply salt water like what you make for your tank. For all of the cultures I listed, except TW, the culture water should be made to a specific gravity of 1.019. For TW, it needs to be around 1.025 to 1.026.

If you are reusing the culture vessels, you need to add chlorine until it is between 3-5 ppm. I make my culture water up in a 5-gallon water jug about a month and add chlorine at that time. You don't need much chlorine. It takes approximately 1/8 teaspoon of granulated chlorine to chlorinate 5 gallons of culture water.

Let the chlorinated culture water sit in the culture vessels for at least 3 hours. Add dechlorinator to dechlorinate the water. It will take some testing with the test strips and adding a small amount of dechlorinator until you find the proper amount. Try not to add way too much dechlorinator or it will strip vital minerals from the water.

Next, add proper amount of Micro Algae Grow or Guillard’s F/2. For the Micro Algae Grow, this is approximately 0.38 ml per liter of culture water. If culturing diatoms, add proper amount of silicate (a few drops for 1 liter of culture water).

Fill culture vessel to proper level- the amount of culture water should be approximately 3x-5x the size of the amount of inoculant used. I use 800ml water bottles and fill it 4/5 the way up with culture water and then most of the rest of the way up with inoculant. Be sure to leave a small air gap so that it doesn’t overflow when you turn on the air.


Procedure

Once you have the inoculated culture water, place it in the 5 gallon bucket and attach the airline. Attach the light source to the timer and set it to be on for 16 hours per day. That’s pretty much it. In about a week, you should have a fully grown culture of your phytoplankton. Use a portion of it to start the next culture and use the rest to feed your tank or zooplankton. It’s also a good idea to keep a little bit in reserve in a dark, cool place to restart your culture in case it crashes.


Cleaning

If you are reusing your materials, it is very important to keep your vessels cleaned and sanitized. The best way to clean the vessels is to acid wash them. However it is less dangerous to simply wash them out with water and Alconox and a scrub brush. Be sure to clean the stopper and rigid airline tubing. Rinse it out and store it with the chlorinated culture water with the stopper and airline until it’s time to use again.

I acid wash mine. After I empty a culture container, I fill it up with a dilute solution of hydrochloric acid. You can use muriatic acid from Home Depot or similar to make your solution as it’s the same thing. Be careful! This is an acid that can burn. Always add acid to the water and never the other way around. I usually fill the culture container about 90 percent full with tap water and then add the acid. Also be sure to have proper ventilation. The acid contains chlorine and can be very dangerous to breathe in.

I keep the acidic solution in the vessels with the airline and stopper until it’s time to reuse the vessel. Then, I rinse the vessel, rigid airline tubing and stopper thoroughly before adding the chlorinated culture water.


Sources for materials

There are many sources for phytoplankton and materials to be used for culturing them. I get most of the basic supplies from Home Depot or Lowe’s Home Improvement. The culture vessels I used are simply empty glass Voss water bottles from the grocery store. Most of the rest can be sourced from Florida Aqua Farms. They carry flexible airline tubing, rigid airline tubing, airline filters, Micro Algae Grow and the phytoplankton cultures. If you are just going to culture the Nanno, the algae disk is fine.

If you are going to grow any of the other kinds, spend a little more and use the liquid cultures, they start much easier. Billgax says that many of the clam and mussel hatcheries will give you starter cultures for free. That sounds like a great option for those in coastal areas.

Florida aqua farms also has a book, the Plankton Culture Manual. This is considered the Bible of phytoplankton (and zooplankton) culturing and is a great resource. Although it is somewhat written from the perspective of growing commercially, I highly recommend it if you are interested in learning more about culturing phytoplankton and zooplankton.

Thank you so much! I just ran across this article. It is exactly what I was looking for as I am getting ready to attempt to raise my own pods for my 150 gal. mixed tank.
I will search the rest of the posts and hopefully find the second installment on raising the pods also.

 

[NS Mike D]

bump, since culturing has been mentioned in other threads and seems like time for a DIY project

 

[NS Mike D]

So far so good. This is a combination phyto and pod project, so I will add some info about the pods culture as well into this post.

My DT is 29 gals so my phyto needs are small. Thus I started with the Mercer of Montana Phytoplankton Culture Kit from amazon $22.50. The kit includes

One 16oz bottle of very dense Nannochloropsis Phytoplankton
One 4oz bottle of Hydro Algal Fertilize
Two 3ml pipettes
Two 1ml syringes, with dispensing caps
Two 3/16" rigid air tubes, approximately 12" each Approximately 3 feet of flexible air tubing - 3/16" ID, 1/4" OD



Since white vinegar and bleach are hard to come by right now, I have food grade contact sanitizer(nu-foam). Rodi water and IO salt mixed to 1.022 SG. Thus pic is my first harvest.

I am using a 320z bottle, hard to see but the cap is from another project which has to fittings, since I needed both a back up culture and a culture to feed the pods, I added a second 16oz after to culture after the initial week.

The pod culture are Atlantic Biotechnology 2600+ Live copepods Tigriopus californicus 8oz from amazon, $25. My LFS was out of Reef Nutrition Tiggers. The culture was full and active on arrival. In addition to dosing with my nanno pyhto, I supplement with a few drops of Reef Nutrition Phyto Feast. That only goes into the pod culture to keep the nanno culture pure. I also put a few drops of Imaginarium (Petco) Biological Booster and a small filer sponge (for surface area) to nitrify any ammonia.

3 weeks into it, pods and phyto are going strong. I'm using window light for now , although the temp swings from 65° to 85° next to the window.

For the pods, I made a sieve out of 12"x12" 80 micron nut milk bag and 3" pvc. Worked great. I strained the pods, then reverse strained them back into the container with 32 oz new salt water and then topped off with the existing water fro about a 33% water change.

I once I have an established phyto and pod culturing routine down, I may remove the second culture (or use that one to give away) as it's clear that I have more than enough for the pods, the DT and a back up culture.


fiww, my DT is looking fantastic. The pods colonies in the fuge are active and growing and the return of the dinos appears to have been beaten back swiftly. I cannot attribute this to the phyto, but I do think the science backs up diversity at the microfauna level is good for our tanks and phyto is a big part of that.

 

[CJO]

That's a great setup you have!

 

[Bryknicks]

I'm finishing up my first go at phyto and it came out a nice dark green. Seems pretty straight forward. I want to start culturing some pods and was curious if I could culture a mix of them in one container. I know with phyto it's not possible due to competition. I would assume the same for pods but want to make sure before I set up multiple containers unnecessarily.

 

[Blutspitze]

Love the look of the pod "facility", @NS Mike D ! I'll probably need to borrow the design - I've been trying to get a pod system up and running for awhile. Are you bubbling into it? Looks like you have an air line. If so, it's not much, right?

 

[NS Mike D]

Love the look of the pod "facility", @NS Mike D ! I'll probably need to borrow the design - I've been trying to get a pod system up and running for awhile. Are you bubbling into it? Looks like you have an air line. If so, it's not much, right?

yes. It's very simple. Main thing is to keep the culture pure by taking a few minutes sanitizing everything. The airpump has a little filter, but it's very easy to set aside a backup culture for the fridge if the main culture crashes.


From what I read, the pods air flow should be very light, one bubble at time. The phyto should be no faster than you can count them and without creating a foam on the surface.

not sure if this is the actual bottle caps I used but you get the point . Standard aquarium airline fits right over the fitting. You do need a small piece of the airline to attach a rigid line on the inside - highly recommended to keep the line at the bottom to create a up flow. Also, you need to gently swirl the bottles (fresh and what you store in the fridge) to to stir up the settled phyto.

 

[CJO]

I'm finishing up my first go at phyto and it came out a nice dark green. Seems pretty straight forward. I want to start culturing some pods and was curious if I could culture a mix of them in one container. I know with phyto it's not possible due to competition. I would assume the same for pods but want to make sure before I set up multiple containers unnecessarily.

I'm not sure, but it may depend on the type. If you have one benthic and one free-swimming, that may work.

 

[NS Mike D]

I'm finishing up my first go at phyto and it came out a nice dark green. Seems pretty straight forward. I want to start culturing some pods and was curious if I could culture a mix of them in one container. I know with phyto it's not possible due to competition. I would assume the same for pods but want to make sure before I set up multiple containers unnecessarily.

I'm pretty sure that amphipods can over take over copepods. When I looked into it, I couldn't be sure that I could maintain a mixed pod culture given the different sizes and reproduction cycle. I am sure I have both tisbe and tiggers in my sump (and thus DT), which is fine with me. The tiggers are mainly to support a mandarin - their big size and movements easier for the mandarin to see - so I decided on the single species culture.

I assume if I wanted to culture something else, like rotifers, it would be easier to just get another container and add the airline. If I want more tisbes, i'll just get a bottle and add to the tank

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I am trying to culture pods. Bought alage barn pods and phyto. Has only been 3 or so days but i can hardly see any pods in the tank.

I started with a fresh 5 gallon tank for the culture. I didnt steralize it though

Does the tank need to be cyled? Maybe i am just being impatient? I am following youtube guides on set up.

 

[CJO]

I am trying to culture pods. Bought alage barn pods and phyto. Has only been 3 or so days but i can hardly see any pods in the tank.

I started with a fresh 5 gallon tank for the culture. I didnt steralize it though

Does the tank need to be cyled? Maybe i am just being impatient? I am following youtube guides on set up.

5 gallons is a huge container to start. I recommend starting small and then going progressively up in size

 

[NS Mike D]

Sterilizing if for culturing phyto. A simple wash and wipe with paper towel is all you need for pods.

The pods don't produce the volume of water that that fish and dead organic matter will in an aquarium, thus I don't think it's an issue in the first 3 days, but certainly add some bacteria and a medium ASAP. I do add bacteria (Imaginarium Biological Booster for Petco) to the water and float a filter sponge for the bacteria to colonize. I've seen people use live rock, sand, and macro algae, but I think this is harder to maintain. You can do 2/3 water changes very 10 days or so to keep things fresh

I assume you were using ro water with matching salinity and temp. Drip acclimation is recommended to avoid shock. I forego the drip and just match my temp and salinity using rodi.


fwiw, I use Reef Nutrition Tiggers as they are much easier to see. (this batch was from Atlantic Biotenchonlogy which were similar to what I'd expect from Reef Nutrition. Keep and eye on your algae barn pods as I've ofter had a hard time seeing them.

It takes about 10 days to start seeing the culture multiply


You can overfeed pods and cause a crash. Add phyto to a lime green. Dose again when it starts to clear.

 

[CJO]

FYI, I ran separate cultures of tigriopus and tisbe for years and never added any bacterial supplement. The phytoplankton does a great job of clearing out the ammonia and the water changes do the rest.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I have a live rock in there. It is a huge tank..I guess, I had to add a whole 16oz bottle of their phyto to get a green tint in the water. Maybe I added to much? Sorry to seem so dense about this. Maybe I just need to wait it out. I have a good bubble rate, proper temperature, and indirect light.

I just thought I would be able to spot more pods, even if I came into the dark room and shinned a light on the tank.