F2 fertilizer in the aquarium?

[jeffchapok]

Growing phyto doesn't have to be high tech or labor intensive. I have a 1.5 gal plastic tank in a box with an LED painter's light and an air pump. I dose about 4x the normal amount of f2 and run the light 24x7. I pull off a gal every 5 or 6 days, top off the water, salt and f2 and start all over again.

It comes out super dark, almost black. I dose 4 oz daily to my 150 mixed reef.

 

[kimros1986]

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.

So this means you get a fresh concentrated batch every others day by really cranking up the light intensity and period?
I probably couldn't dose 4 l every other day into my 400 litres. But I could maybe make a smaller container and go with "quicker loops", than 2 weeks.

 

[kimros1986]

Growing phyto doesn't have to be high tech or labor intensive. I have a 1.5 gal plastic tank in a box with an LED painter's light and an air pump. I dose about 4x the normal amount of f2 and run the light 24x7. I pull off a gal every 5 or 6 days, top off the water, salt and f2 and start all over again.

It comes out super dark, almost black. I dose 4 oz daily to my 150 mixed reef.

Yeah I understand and my previous setup was something similar. I want to acchieve more or less daily dosing and therefor automating it. I already have the tech necessary (air pump, containers, f2, free dosing pump etc etc), so I might as well use it - if possible.
That's super dark green btw! Wow

 

[Lasse]

Theoretical - these algae ave a dubble time lesser than 24 hours. Silica of 0.25 ppm - no panic figure. Do you have siporax or products like siporax in your aquarium? especially in anaerobic environments?

Here is my readings 20 000 µg is 20 ppm.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

@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.

The recipe



The party



Sincerely Lasse

 

[fryman]

Growing phyto doesn't have to be high tech or labor intensive. I have a 1.5 gal plastic tank in a box with an LED painter's light and an air pump. I dose about 4x the normal amount of f2 and run the light 24x7. I pull off a gal every 5 or 6 days, top off the water, salt and f2 and start all over again.

It comes out super dark, almost black. I dose 4 oz daily to my 150 mixed reef.

Are you sure that's still phytoplankton? What species and do you ever check it with a microscope?

Sorry but I am skeptical when hobby setups claim to have better density than commercial products that are purposely concentrated for storage/shipping. Phyto can be concentrated with a centrifuge beyond densities that would survive naturally but it still doesn't turn black. I suspect you have other organisms in there, perhaps some film/macroalgae?

 

[Subsea]

The recipe



The party



Sincerely Lasse

I like the way Swedes party. Now I am especially hungry to eat crawfish.

 

[Subsea]

Are you sure that's still phytoplankton? What species and do you ever check it with a microscope?

Sorry but I am skeptical when hobby setups claim to have better density than commercial products that are purposely concentrated for storage/shipping. Phyto can be concentrated with a centrifuge beyond densities that would survive naturally but it still doesn't turn black. I suspect you have other organisms in there, perhaps some film/macroalgae?

I grow phyto almost that dark. It is definitely more dense than what was shipped to me from Mercer of Montana. I use ten fold light intensity requiring cooling fans and 4 fold fertilizer dose. It grows with some clumping if I delay harvesting. I am considering harvesting every day. I have maintained a continuous culture of Tetraselmis for 1 year, but only recently at this capacity.

 

[fryman]

I grow phyto almost that dark. It is definitely more dense than what was shipped to me from Mercer of Montana. I use ten fold light intensity requiring cooling fans and 4 fold fertilizer dose. It grows with some clumping if I delay harvesting. I am considering harvesting every day. I have maintained a continuous culture of Tetraselmis for 1 year, but only recently at this capacity.

Have you looked at your culture under a microscope? A lot of marine organisms are green. Including cyanobacteria, which would certainly grow that fast.

Tetraselmis will not grow faster with higher concentration fert and 10x the optimal light intensity will kill it. Although tetraselmis is very high light tolerant in my experience.

 

[DaneGer21]

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

My “grow box” haha

 

[Subsea]

Have you looked at your culture under a microscope? A lot of marine organisms are green. Including cyanobacteria, which would certainly grow that fast.

Tetraselmis will not grow faster with higher concentration fert and 10x the optimal light intensity will kill it. Although tetraselmis is very high light tolerant in my experience.

Really! So I have been dosing Cynobacteria to my 25 yr mature tank for the last year. I am glad Sea Apple and ornamental sponges eat Cynobacteria.

@fryman
Please link research paper that defines minimum & maximum light intensity for phytoplankton..



@Lasse
Is doubling of Tetraselmis concentration feasible in 24 hours.

 

[fryman]

Really! So I have been dosing Cynobacteria to my 25 yr mature tank for the last year. I am glad Sea Apple and ornamental sponges eat Cynobacteria.

@fryman
Please link research paper that defines minimum & maximum light intensity for phytoplankton..



@Lasse
Is doubling of Tetraselmis concentration feasible in 24 hours.

No offense intended, just trying to help.

I culture tetraselmis, have a microscope and centrifuge. I have concentrated tetraselmis to millions of cells/ml, beyond any natural level, and it still doesn't look like that pic. Live tetraselmis is always a bright green color.

But regardless, without a microscope ID I'm not sure. Maybe the color representation in the picture was off? But I have seen multiple cultures transform due to contamination. On more than one occasion, my nanno cultures have changed into tetraselmis due to contamination. The only way I found out was by putting it under a microscope. You cannot tell the difference by eye, just looks like green water. Cyano is a wild guess, but it's the right color, clumps up at high concentrations as you described, and is a very common phyto contaminant. I would not expect you have only cyano in your culture, but frankly kinda doubt it's just tetraselmis either. Especially if you never checked it for a year in continuous culture.

And like anything you cannot increase light intensity indefinitely. Any photosynthetic organism will die if given too much light.

I don't know the max light intensity but I've found above 500 PAR tetraselmis starts to bleach. Nanno, Iso, and everything else I tried completely died at that PAR level and so I had to switch to less intense lighting.

My favorite references for hobby culturing are below:

https://shellfish.ifas.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/Phytoplankton-Culture-for-Aquaculture-Feed.pdf

The Breeder’s Net: Culturing Larval Fish Foods, Part I

We'll survey useful types of phytoplankton, discuss why they are important in our home fish breeding efforts, and examine what it takes for home culture of these microalgae.

reefs.com

 

[Lasse]

@Lasse
Is doubling of Tetraselmis concentration feasible in 24 hours.

My remark was a general remark - between the the thumb and index finger. But I check and it seems that a double time below 24 hours is possible with this genera - I have seen reports including all from around 3 to around 1 day double time.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[kimros1986]

Theoretical - these algae ave a dubble time lesser than 24 hours. Silica of 0.25 ppm - no panic figure. Do you have siporax or products like siporax in your aquarium? especially in anaerobic environments?

Here is my readings 20 000 µg is 20 ppm.

Sincerely Lasse

No siporax or other biobrick type media. I have a dsb in the sump, but with "high quality" red sea aragonite small grain sand.
Have molded some rock with reef cement, have read that reef cement can leak silicates?
I'm hoping to get results from icp today, will see if the trend has changed. Not worried today but the curve could be better I've seen quite a few sponges growing, so I'm guessing they thrive...

 

[kimros1986]

Theoretical - these algae ave a dubble time lesser than 24 hours. Silica of 0.25 ppm - no panic figure. Do you have siporax or products like siporax in your aquarium? especially in anaerobic environments?

Here is my readings 20 000 µg is 20 ppm.

Sincerely Lasse

Sorry, one question. Do you know why silica all of a sudden dropped from 20 ppm down to almost 0? What could fuel a drop like that? Was that when you removed your siporax in your revert dsb (I remember reading something about that in your thread a while ago)

 

[Subsea]

No offense intended, just trying to help.

I culture tetraselmis, have a microscope and centrifuge. I have concentrated tetraselmis to millions of cells/ml, beyond any natural level, and it still doesn't look like that pic. Live tetraselmis is always a bright green color.

But regardless, without a microscope ID I'm not sure. Maybe the color representation in the picture was off? But I have seen multiple cultures transform due to contamination. On more than one occasion, my nanno cultures have changed into tetraselmis due to contamination. The only way I found out was by putting it under a microscope. You cannot tell the difference by eye, just looks like green water. Cyano is a wild guess, but it's the right color, clumps up at high concentrations as you described, and is a very common phyto contaminant. I would not expect you have only cyano in your culture, but frankly kinda doubt it's just tetraselmis either. Especially if you never checked it for a year in continuous culture.

And like anything you cannot increase light intensity indefinitely. Any photosynthetic organism will die if given too much light.

I don't know the max light intensity but I've found above 500 PAR tetraselmis starts to bleach. Nanno, Iso, and everything else I tried completely died at that PAR level and so I had to switch to less intense lighting.

My favorite references for hobby culturing are below:

https://shellfish.ifas.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/Phytoplankton-Culture-for-Aquaculture-Feed.pdf

The Breeder’s Net: Culturing Larval Fish Foods, Part I

We'll survey useful types of phytoplankton, discuss why they are important in our home fish breeding efforts, and examine what it takes for home culture of these microalgae.

reefs.com

Assuming I am dosing cynobacteria in an established reef tank of 400L with 4L every other day, what is consuming it?

I don’t plan on using a microscope to validate my food source as long as I see good results in my system.

is Cynobacteria a food source for reef inhabitants?

 

[Lasse]

Have molded some rock with reef cement, have read that reef cement can leak silicates?

Probably your source - will calm down in a while

Do you know why silica all of a sudden dropped from 20 ppm down to almost 0? What could fuel a drop like that? Was that when you removed your siporax in your revert dsb

Yes it was because I remove it and did a 80 % WC during a week. But i also run GFO rather much during the next 2 - 3 months. It will take some - but be aware of your free PO4

Sincerely Lasse

 

[fryman]

Assuming I am dosing cynobacteria in an established reef tank of 400L with 4L every other day, what is consuming it?

I don’t plan on using a microscope to validate my food source as long as I see good results in my system.

is Cynobacteria a food source for reef inhabitants?

Tank looks great! I'm not really one to make assumptions which is why i recommend checking.

Unlike your aquarium, we cannot assess the quality of phyto by visual appearance. If you are making changes to methods just be careful - phds have determined recommended culture parameters based on extensive testing. I don't think you can improve on this without even a microscope.

 

[jeffchapok]

No, I don't have a microscope. It's not actually black -- it's dark blue green. It's just so dark that light barely passes thru it.

Does microalgae settle like this?

Regardless of what it is, my corals, clam and scallop are thriving on it.

Are you sure that's still phytoplankton? What species and do you ever check it with a microscope?

Sorry but I am skeptical when hobby setups claim to have better density than commercial products that are purposely concentrated for storage/shipping. Phyto can be concentrated with a centrifuge beyond densities that would survive naturally but it still doesn't turn black. I suspect you have other organisms in there, perhaps some film/macroalgae?

 

[fryman]

Here's another culture, doesn't it look nice and dark green? This is cyano



Tetraselmis will eventually settle but it takes many hours. It's motile.

You probably have tetraselmis at the top and something else that settles out like that.