Culturing Phytoplankton

[superbluetang]

Great write up. I'll have to give this a try!

 

[GROSSR]

I have been culturing phyto for over 4 years. This is a great write up. As stated, important to know your strain. Regarding cleaning the bottles, I rotate a set of 4 1liter bottles as mentioned earlier. Fill 1/2 the bottle with tap water, shake it up good, dump and then fill them with that nasty tap water we drink. A day before I want to use a new bottle, I dump the water and let it air dry. No bleach, no chlorine, just tap water.

I have also had complete cultures crash, and I am left with nothing. I have learned to leave a 1 liter bottles in the fridge as a back up. Longest I have stored a bottle in the fridge, and brought it back was about 3 weeks.

So, I regularly rotate the bottle in the fridge for back up. I have had my wife yell at me, because she thought it was a 1 liter bottle of juice. She didn't drink it.

Another issue is over production. I dose about 4 ml in my 46 bow daily. At that rate I am culturing way to much. I have offered it for FREE!!!! and rarely have takers.


I would love to hear what others are doing with the extra phyto?

thanks

rich

 

[dieselwagon]

can I use freshwater plant food. as fertilizer for phyto.? i have a lot in stock and was hoping it would work instead of throwing it away.

 

[GROSSR]

I know some have posted using liquid miracle gro. My concern is the unconsumed fertilizer is going into your tank. I use the guillard f/2 product. You can try your fertilizer and see what happens. If you could raise rotifers and feed the rotofers that phyto, that would be a good indicator if the fertilizer is ok.

I use driveway heat for my calcium dosing. It has been used by others and reported no issues. What ever you use, you need to make sure doesn't create an adverse reaction in your tank.

I personally tend not lead the way with untested product.

rich

 

[hung52]

May I ask a question? What phytoplankton does? I have xenia and i heard they need phyto?

 

[GROSSR]

phyto is the first food or lowest level in the food chain.

rich

 

[Ally4red]

Can you use this bottle to start your culture?

 

[Windy]

How are you going to feed the culture twice daily? Remove some for harvest? A bucket is the easiest, but many use plastic bottles and rigid airline into them from the "TOP".

 

[Ally4red]

How are you going to feed the culture twice daily? Remove some for harvest? A bucket is the easiest, but many use plastic bottles and rigid airline into them from the "TOP".

Thank you. Can I buy any brand of phytoplanktons to start culture and art it has to be a certain one? Can I use miracle grow as fertilizer ?

 

[GROSSR]

Yes, any live strain will work or a culture disk. Keyword...Live. Can you use micracle grow? I have seen some who have. I wouldn't, but you could try and see what happens. Test and get back to us. Rots are different in that you can filter them out, phyto really is the entire bottle of what you cultured goes in the tank. I am not a snob, just want to verify that someone has done it before.

 

[rjl45]

Can I use miracle grow as fertilizer ?

You can, but I would not recommend it over a long duration. Miracle Grow contains trace elements (heavy metals) that over time will contaminate your tank. Granted, it is very small amounts, but over a year or 2, it will add up and lead to problems.

You're much better off buying f/2 from Florida Aqua Farms or another source.

 

[GROSSR]

Also, there are different strains of phyto. I had a strain that went super dark green in a couple of weeks. that eventually crashed, I tried to find that strain again, but, sadly my source went dark. I got another strain from a fellow reefer, and waiting for over 4 weeks and I still is a light green color. I have added more f/2 to the top off water, doesn't matter. Just different. Some are different sizes. Read up on the different strains as well.

rich

 

[Ally4red]

It works

 

[fishview]

Wow nice. How long did it take? I am trying to start a culture and it is not that dark yet after two weeks. Make sure I should add more micro grow?

It works

 

[Ally4red]

It took me about a week. I used skimmate from my protein skimmer as fertilizer

 

[jd371]

Nice write up. I'm culturing phyto to feed the copepod culture I started. After 10 days the 2L bottle is a nice dark green, so I will be harvesting for the first time today. I plan to split the harvest one to feed and the other will stay in the fridge in case of a crash. What will cause a culture to crash?

 

[fishview]

Mine is going after 3 weeks. It is still not as dark as what you have in the picture. Thinking to give it another week before split.
I will also have to ask the question. What makes it crash?

 

[rjl45]

Color is dependent on a couple factors including but not limited to; type of phyto, fertilizer(food) and lighting. You will be better of if you harvest (or split) during the "prime" growth period, typically 6-10 days. Anything after 10 days and the nutritional value goes down and in my observations the culture becomes unstable.

What can cause a crash? The culture runs out of food or too much fertilizer, contaminates creep in, culture not maintained.

I always run an extra bottle of phyto as an "insurance policy".

 

[fishview]

Thanks for the tips. I noticed that the bottle in the middle is darker than the ones at the end. So brighter light will make it darker.

Does anyone use red LED? I use red LED for chaeto and it doing very well. Maybe I should try that.

 

[rjl45]

I use 2 standard fluorescent lights, nothing special. I grow 6 liters, 5 x 1 liter bottles and 1 x 2 liter bottle. Grows enough to keep 3 pod cultures fed (each about 3 gallons) and plenty extra phyto for my display tank. I try to offset the bottles of phyto so that they "peak" on separate days and coincide with my water changes on the pod cultures.