F2 fertilizer in the aquarium?

kimros1986

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Hello!
For the second time I've recently started to culture phytoplankton to dose in my tank. I have clams, Christmas tree worms among others that would benefit from dosing phyto.

I did this for about a year ago, but couldn't be bothered to continue. I found there were too many manual elements in the upkeep. Also the dosing became irregular etc.

This time around I'm trying a more automatic setup. The general idea is to have an ongoing culture that I also use as an active dosing container (dosetronic).

From my experience with previous cultures it took me almost 2 weeks to reach the cultures peak (harvest) time. That's when I removed 50% and added fresh saltwater and fertilizer, and new loop of 2 weeks.
This time I'm planning to dose 50% of the total volume spread out over 2 weeks, and add fresh saltwater/fertilizer either
- bi-weekly, manually or
- daily, by dosing pump

This way I would eliminate building up a storage with dirty green bottles thay I need to shake shake shake, which I hate hate hate. I would also eliminate the manual dosing schedule from these refrigerated bottles, which I won't be able to upkeep.

But it has raised some concerns.
1. Have I done some practical errors in this that is downright stupid?
2. Should I refill every day or just every second week? If I refill every second week the concentration of phyto will differ a lot from the dose on day one compared to day 14.
If I refill daily, is there any change in calculations of peak period?
3. How much (peak concentration) phyto culture would be relevant for my 400 litres system? sps dominated with a daily dose of around 300 ml balling classic
4. Last but not least, as the topic of this post, does anyone know if there will be any long term negative effects of f2 fertilizer media getting dosed in the tank (since its dosing from an active culture)??


PS. I plan to downsize the container. Bigger one in the beginning to have a few bottled cultures as a spare :)

Thanks in advance for all possible input on this setup!
 

Subsea

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Kim from Sweden,

I will not address line #1

with respect to line #2 & #3, I think it makes little differrence as to consistent concentration of phyto. Its never consistent in the ocean.

I am somewhat confused on the 2 week peak cultivation cycle. When I initially inoculated a 6L phyto generator with 1L of Tetraselmis phytoplankto, I waited at most 10 days. Thereafter, I harvest 3L every other day and dose direct into two differrent systems. Display tanks are visible tainted green for 2 hours, then they clear up. I use triple dose of Guillard f/2 fertilizer in culture vessel, 3ml/L and leave lights on 24/7.

On a forum of this size, I am sure you will get comments about a phyto bloom in your display tank. Considering that display tank is several hundred times larger than volume of phyto culture, I see little impact in display from f/2 fertilizer in phyto culture vessel. In fact, in addittion to dosing phytoplankton in display, I also dose ChaetoGrow.

image.jpg image.jpg
 
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kimros1986

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Kim from Sweden,

I will not address line #1

with respect to line #2 & #3, I think it makes little differrence as to consistent concentration of phyto. Its never consistent in the ocean.

I am somewhat confused on the 2 week peak cultivation cycle. When I initially inoculated a 6L phyto generator with 1L of Tetraselmis phytoplankto, I waited at most 10 days. Thereafter, I harvest 3L every other day and dose direct into two differrent systems. Display tanks are visible tainted green for 2 hours, then they clear up. I use triple dose of Guillard f/2 fertilizer in culture vessel, 3ml/L and leave lights on 24/7.

On a forum of this size, I am sure you will get comments about a phyto bloom in your display tank. Considering that display tank is several hundred times larger than volume of phyto culture, I see little impact in display from f/2 fertilizer in phyto culture vessel. In fact, in addittion to dosing phytoplankton in display, I also dose ChaetoGrow.

image.jpg

Thank you for your input!

I think that if I reduce the lighting schedule I can prolong the peak period to 2 weeks. That might be wrong though? Before I had 16 h on and 8 hours off, and had to harvest around day 10. My plan was to cut the light to 12on/12off and hopefully reach a 2 week loop.

If I understood your setup correctly, you already do what I plan to do, but in different volumes and with some manual steps where I plan to automate it.

I was a bit concerned if the small dose of f2 could make nutrients/silicates to spike, or if there was any heavy metals that might be heavily concentrated that will build up in my tank.
But I also have a refugium of around 10% of totalt water volume, and I guess the small amount of f2 could actually benefit the macro algea. Now I support dose iron, copper, manganese and vanadium (monthly icp results).

Do you take out some extra litres of aquarium water to balance out the added salt from the phyto culture?
 
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kimros1986

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Too soon to draw any conclusion, but this data from no3 on the mastertronic is interesting.
After the measurement on the red line I started to dose phytoplankton daily. That's the only change I've done the last few days in my system.

I knew phyto could have an effect on nutrients, but I've been stuck at around 7 ppm for like a month now, and after phyto it starts to go down further...
Po4 hasn't changed in the same period.
 

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mickeysreef <*))))<

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here is how you solve this.

make some fresh saltwater and test it. then add the f2 to the water and test it. now you will have eliminated any inquiry as to what the f2 is adding to your water. you can also now reduce or increase your f2 to an acceptable level and compare it to phyto growth.

you wont get an accurate reading if you are testing with the pytho in the water, so just remove that element. thereafter, you run a test where you dose 1/2 of the f2 side by side with a full dose and examine your phyto results.

i've recently bought some powerful lights for my phyto and what normally took 2 weeks, is taking something like 2 days. its fun when you play around!
 

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“Do you take out some extra litres of aquarium water to balance out the added salt from the phyto culture?”

Kim,
I suspect you pay much more attention to your parameters than I do. After reefkeeping for 50 years,
I have evolved to Laissez Faire Reefing.
 

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kimros1986

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here is how you solve this.

make some fresh saltwater and test it. then add the f2 to the water and test it. now you will have eliminated any inquiry as to what the f2 is adding to your water. you can also now reduce or increase your f2 to an acceptable level and compare it to phyto growth.

you wont get an accurate reading if you are testing with the pytho in the water, so just remove that element. thereafter, you run a test where you dose 1/2 of the f2 side by side with a full dose and examine your phyto results.

i've recently bought some powerful lights for my phyto and what normally took 2 weeks, is taking something like 2 days. its fun when you play around!
Definitely fun to play around! :D I have my container standing on a nano freshwater "grow" light. Don't remember the kelvin. But it's only 6w. Should suffice though. And my last culture was actually just a ledstrip wrapped around a spaghetti container!
That thought hadn't crossed my mind... I think this current light will fuel the growth quicker than the ledstrip...

Tbh I'm not that concerned about the nutrients, I track them closely. But rather the silicates and maybe some of the heavy metals where I on occasion have had high readings on icp (molybdenum to name one).

But, it would still be interesting to laborate with the f2 dose to find an "optimal" volume. Just need to give away at least one of my kids first to get the time needed, haha!
 
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kimros1986

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“Do you take out some extra litres of aquarium water to balance out the added salt from the phyto culture?”

Kim,
I suspect you pay much more attention to your parameters than I do. After reefkeeping for 50 years,
I have evolved to Laissez Faire Reefing.
Fair enough! I'm still on my honeymoon, year three of reefing.

I'll get there in time
 
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kimros1986

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Whats your PO4 levels - F2 contain PO4 and NO3 among other things

Sincerely Lasse
Hello Lasse! :)

My po4 has increased, not sure if its temporary, by coincidence or an effect from f2. As you can see I've had around 0,03 before.
Last night I added some reefroids, my memory might fail me on this one but I think I could see an increased value of po4 when I did a bigger dose of reed roids last time as well (but at the same time no real impact on no3) .
Time will tell, I will pause reef roids for a week and watch the trend on po4.
 

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Last night I added some reefroids, my memory might fail me on this one but I think I could see an increased value of po4 when I did a bigger dose of reed roids last time as well (but at the same time no real impact on no3) .
Time will tell, I will pause reef roids for a week and watch the trend on po4.
Reefroids is a known factor for rising phosphate - we use that trick at the museum.

But what i was thinking is that you could have had a P defiency before and adding living culture with rest F2 could add some phosphorous for more growth - hence more use of N and NO3 to decline.

Do you use the option for NO2 correction in the mastertronic?

Sincerely Lasse
 

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“Tbh I'm not that concerned about the nutrients, I track them closely. But rather the silicates and maybe some of the heavy metals where I on occasion have had high readings on icp (molybdenum to name one).”

kim,
Consider your macro algae as a sponge that will absorb heavy metals.

With respect to silicates, I dose silicates for ornamental sponges in my systems. Considering that diatoms are composed of silicates, I see diatoms as a type of phytoplankton which feeds zooplankton as part of the microbial loop.

My makeup water comes from a limestone aquifer that was part of an inland sea and was full of diatoms & silicates. Ground water at 1000’ comes in with a
TDS over 900ppm.

PS: Sorry about multiple copies of ground water. The last lab results are for Gracilaria Parvispora. Note high level of copper absorbed, yet copper does not show up in well water. The lab that did the dry analysis of Red Ogo was an agricultural regional lab. For my curiosity, I will get them to test for silicates in macro.
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
900ppm image.jpg
 
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kimros1986

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Reefroids is a known factor for rising phosphate - we use that trick at the museum.

But what i was thinking is that you could have had a P defiency before and adding living culture with rest F2 could add some phosphorous for more growth - hence more use of N and NO3 to decline.

Do you use the option for NO2 correction in the mastertronic?

Sincerely Lasse
But wouldn't that be if there was not enough P to absorb? I'm not high on po4 but I feed quite heavily and I haven't had this effect on no3 with previous reefroids doses.

Anyway, no Im not even familiar with that setting?? :D I've looked around now and haven't found anything about it. So I'm guessing I don't use it! :)
 

DaneGer21

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I’m actually trying a new light setup myself. I got some warm white led strips, the flat ones you can cut to length and that have the adhesive backing. I took a box and stuck them to the walls on the inside, “circling” around the inside. I’ll take a pic later. Low heat, low power. So far so good
 

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Anyway, no Im not even familiar with that setting?? :D I've looked around now and haven't found anything about it. So I'm guessing I don't use it! :)
Maybe I have misunderstand Jonas - I though he had incorporate that :D

Sincerely Lasse
 

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Definitely fun to play around! :D I have my container standing on a nano freshwater "grow" light. Don't remember the kelvin. But it's only 6w. Should suffice though. And my last culture was actually just a ledstrip wrapped around a spaghetti container!
That thought hadn't crossed my mind... I think this current light will fuel the growth quicker than the ledstrip...

Tbh I'm not that concerned about the nutrients, I track them closely. But rather the silicates and maybe some of the heavy metals where I on occasion have had high readings on icp (molybdenum to name one).

But, it would still be interesting to laborate with the f2 dose to find an "optimal" volume. Just need to give away at least one of my kids first to get the time needed, haha!

My focus has been to maximize production of a 8L phyto generator. I batch dose 4L every other day. For that purpose, I have 7’ of LED encircling vertical tube with 100W. I used eggcrate light diffuser to allow standoff for heat reduction, but required 1W pancake fan to evaporative cool phyto culture.

Once you have diversity of micro fauna, populations reflect available food levels and self regulate. I call it Laissez Faire reefing using “dynamic equilibrium“.

@Laissez
I thought about your Swedish custom of eating crawfish. I am hosting a crawfish boil this weekend for some of my Texas neighbors. Considering 8lbs of whole crawfish to make 1lb of meat and with crawfish at $5/lb, I am going to boil shrimp first and fill the Texacans up with $6/lb shrimp, instead of $40/lb crawfish meat.
 
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kimros1986

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Maybe I have misunderstand Jonas - I though he had incorporate that :D

Sincerely Lasse
Maybe its already incorporated? A nifty little thing for sure :) a few bugs and sometimes it makes me feel like a paying beta tester... but a happy little camper nonetheless! :D
 
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kimros1986

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“Tbh I'm not that concerned about the nutrients, I track them closely. But rather the silicates and maybe some of the heavy metals where I on occasion have had high readings on icp (molybdenum to name one).”

kim,
Consider your macro algae as a sponge that will absorb heavy metals.

With respect to silicates, I dose silicates for ornamental sponges in my systems. Considering that diatoms are composed of silicates, I see diatoms as a type of phytoplankton which feeds zooplankton as part of the microbial loop.

My makeup water comes from a limestone aquifer that was part of an inland sea and was full of diatoms & silicates. Ground water at 1000’ comes in with a
TDS over 900ppm.

PS: Sorry about multiple copies of ground water. The last lab results are for Gracilaria Parvispora. Note high level of copper absorbed, yet copper does not show up in well water. The lab that did the dry analysis of Red Ogo was an agricultural regional lab. For my curiosity, I will get them to test for silicates in macro.
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
image.jpg
900ppm image.jpg

The reason why I mention silicates is due to a slightly but ever rising silica level. Not worried or bothered yet, but it would be nice to see a change.
 

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