Culturing Phytoplankton

[AsphaltPays]

Great Write up!! I am definitely gonna try it out Thanks


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[Young Frankenstein]

 

[Young Frankenstein]

I have grown over the years buckets of this stuff :) using varius methodes. The first was with bulbs and HD miracle grow (As Melves instructions) mymethode, outside, using Natural sunlight, reverse the bottles for better movement, nothing sttles in the bottom, 1.20 water, (Mix 1.25 with tap water) no sterilizin etc mambo jumbo, mix iron, manganese from chem with home made magnezium chloride, safer to dose, my corals love it.

 

[Young Frankenstein]

What you see here is a new batch, 2 days old, I will post new photos a week from now so you can see how green this phyto is.

 

[GIT RITE]

Young Frankenstein, could you do a thread of your own on your current process of culturing. It would be interesting to read how it all works, how much of this you use, how long, how much light, etc. I am sure many others would like to read it to.




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[CJO]

That's a cool looking setup and should work well for Nanochloropsis since it is so hardy. The extra steps in my writeup are so that you can raise more difficult strains like T. Iso and Tetraselmis,which are much easier to crash and are easily taken over by Nanochloropsis.

CJ

 

[Young Frankenstein]

That's a cool looking setup and should work well for Nanochloropsis since it is so hardy. The extra steps in my writeup are so that you can raise more difficult strains like T. Iso and Tetraselmis,which are much easier to crash and are easily taken over by Nanochloropsis.

CJ

Thanks, I dont have access to such equipment to be able to tell the diffrence between diffrent strains, all I know is phyto :)

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Thanks, this thread will do just fine :) I will post more details and videos when the stuff is greener.

 

[CJO]

Thanks, I dont have access to such equipment to be able to tell the diffrence between diffrent strains, all I know is phyto :)

Me neither. I've been thinking about getting a microscope for it, but haven't yet. I've been going off of color and making sure that it doesn't crash.

Thanks, this thread will do just fine :) I will post more details and videos when the stuff is greener.

That sounds good.

Thanks,
CJ

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Did you know? "Mana" that the Israekites survived on for 40 years in the desert was this green algae we grow ?, also that Nasa has produced green algae as food for space travel.

 

[Young Frankenstein]

[video=youtube;YrRmX-vJ_qs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrRmX-vJ_qs&feature=youtu.be[/video]

This colture was started on 5/14 about 2 weeks ago, redy for dosing. Made from MG and Iron Manganese, Itsso good I could drik it.

 

[returnofsid]

If you do drink it, make sure we get a video of that too!

 

[Young Frankenstein]

If you do drink it, make sure we get a video of that too!

I will serve the "coolaid" to my fellow reefers first :)JJ

 

[Rjramos]

Nice write up CJ! I've been trying to breed some midas blennies and haven't found the time and energy to complete a culture and larval station I started. I've already gotten a nanno and rotifer cultures going in the past. I just gotta organize it a bit! Also, in addition, Matt Wittenrich's "Breeder's Guide is a great source of information for anyone looking to take on the challenges of fish breeding and culture propagation.

Thanks. Rich

 

[Wildman]

I am trying to culture Nano. I started with a disk from FAF. The first culture worked great. I then split it and put half in a pod culture which is doing great. The other half I added new saltwater to and it seperated out and turned yellow. I have tried two other cultures by taking a portion from the pod culture and both have settled out and turned yellow. I am sterilizing the culture containers. Can someone tell me why this is happening?

 

[helldiver]

ty so much

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.

 

[Harold Green]

I keep a row of 5 two liter bottles going at all times, harvesting a bottle every two days. Guess I'm not following the rules since I don't sterilize the water going into the bottles. I do pour the green water through a brine shrimp net to remove any larger wild algaes and after harvest I fill the used bottle with tap water and some bleach, letting it sit for a day or two, then rinsing and allowing to air for a couple of days. I use f/2 and retain around 1 liter of green water to restart a new bottle each time. Normally within 4 to 5 days the bottle is dark green. I've found I get better growth if I use about 3ml of the f/2 for each 2 liter bottle.

 

[lemonyx]

The start of the phyto pharm w/brine shrimp



to this



about 17 2L bottles of bubbling goodness

The std aquarium air pump was not up to the tank so had to use one of these

 

[radiata]

Phyto Feed Problems?

I'm not enough of a purist to repeatedly grow phyto successfully. So, I've resorted to commercially available products. For a while I was dumping these products into my system every two or three weeks. BUT this seemed to result in the prolific growth of hydroids in my system.

Have any of you phyto growers had similar results? If not, any ideas why not?

 

[Windy]

Buy a bag of RG Omega from Reed Mariculture. It has a two year shelf life and its cheaper than you can grow it. I'll never grow phyto again.