Grow your own reef food! Do you have a DIY culture station?

[Peace River]

Grow your own reef food: Do you have a DIY culture station?

There are many food options for your reef from pellets, flakes, powder, frozen, phyto, and more. With all the commercial choices, some people still choose to mix their own and even grow their own reef food. Live foods that you can grow from a culture Include brine shrimp, copepods, rotifers, and phytoplankton. There are many reasons to raise your own foods and many ways to go about it. Have you ever had a DIY culture station? If so, please share your experiences as well as any tips or techniques that you have successfully used.

Photo by @York1


This QOTD is sponsored by: www.worldwidecorals.com

“At WWC our staff takes the worry out of the equation by culturing extremely healthy corals, giving you a hassle-free guarantee, and providing you with a full online customer service team to ensure you are completely satisfied with your purchase.”

 

[Stealthreefer]

I run live brine because of my Sally project. I don't know if that counts but every tank gets live brine shrimp daily. No other live foods.

Brine shrimp culture for dummies like me:
scoop out a cup of tank water, put in shrimp eggs, there you go you just grew live food for your tank.

Maybe people who actually understand this stuff will see this, why doesn't tossing shrimp eggs into my sump work?

 

[Jeremy_d]

I have a phyto reactor and occasionally will hatch brine shrimp. I think it would be awesome to have a mysis tank for fresh food as well.

 

[Gman83]

I have grown brine shrimp for a while. Just started a pods and phyto culture. Seems to he going well so far

 

[Mr. Roboto]

I have cultured phyto in the past. It's fairly easy if you have the space for it.

I have also grown brine shrimp when I bred banggai.

 

[BanZI29]

I just recently started tto grow phyto, and plan on starting pods also. @Reef By Steele has helped me out alot. He's got his own setup growing all kinds of phyto and pods.

 

[Debramb]

I’m going to try and grow “out” Brine Shrimp! Babies are to small, my fish can’t see

 

[hollback]

I've been culturing copepods and phytoplankton since 2004.

 

[El Toro]

I just started a 10 gallon with Phyto and Copepods. Simple bubbler and a grow light for 5 hours overnight.

Id like to try brine shrimp too.

I feel bad for the vendors who will lose business if this becomes widespread (doubt it) but lately, several have failed to meet customer needs, so it could force people's hands.

 

[Gretchacha]

The food I culture myself is bacteria snow, since 70% of a coral’s diet in the wild is bacteria, and I have quite a few coral that are hard to feed and may not even capture prey, such as the fox coral. I culture Eco Complete with NP+ and amino acids and use life source mud and marine snow to make it easy to consume and stick in the tank.

I buy live foods, currently live pods from Reef Nutrition on subscription. I have purchased also rotifers and phytoplankton in the past from Reef Nutrition and Algae barn. I tried culturing all if these, but it wasn’t worth it. I was always concerned about waste products like fertilizer and bacteria, too.

I sometimes grow baby brine shrimp.

 

[tzabor10]

Does having a HOB Refugium with copepods count?

 

[shakacuz]

i seed my tank every few months with copepods from @AlgaeBarn. i would like to believe i am "growing" or culturing them in my sump during the months i don't dose/seed.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Huh, funny, I just started my phyto and copepod cultures earlier yesterday. Half a bag of 8oz tisbe with phyto - feast.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

Oh and does anyone know if having the skimmer right next to copepods in the sump will just completely remove the population? My sump isn't big enough for a standard fuge and the only compartments wide enough to accomodate LR and chaeto is either the return compartment or the skimmer compartment.

 

[mosreef]

culture Eco Complete with NP+ and amino acids and use life source mud and marine snow

I’m very curious about your post - what are eco complete and np+? And do you mean AF life source mud and TLF marine snow? How do you culture & dose this?

 

[Jeremy_d]

Huh, funny, I just started my phyto and copepod cultures earlier yesterday. Half a bag of 8oz tisbe with phyto - feast.

I started mime with Galaxy pods from algae barn and I was concerned after a week because I didn’t see any pods but after about a month they exploded. I feed them phyto daily and I have a super healthy population of all types of pods. It was incredible to watch unfold

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

I started mime with Galaxy pods from algae barn and I was concerned after a week because I didn’t see any pods but after about a month they exploded. I feed them phyto daily and I have a super healthy population of all types of pods. It was incredible to watch unfold

I used tank water instead of fresh saltwater for the tisbe... guess we'll see how that turns out. They're pretty big so I don't think anything is predating on them. Dosed a crap ton of phyto on day 1 and I'm planning to just go with a few drops daily since Phyto - feast is some concentrated stuff.

 

[Jeremy_d]

I used tank water instead of fresh saltwater for the tisbe... guess we'll see how that turns out. They're pretty big so I don't think anything is predating on them. Dosed a crap ton of phyto on day 1 and I'm planning to just go with a few drops daily since Phyto - feast is some concentrated stuff.

I have a 2.5 gallon tank setup with a few pieces of rubble and and I feed it daily and it’s some disgusting water but the pods are so heavy in there. I can suck them out with a turkey baster and I put them in my display daily

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

I have a 2.5 gallon tank setup with a few pieces of rubble and and I feed it daily and it’s some disgusting water but the pods are so heavy in there. I can suck them out with a turkey baster and I put them in my display daily

lovely... does the tigriopus and tisbes there compete? I would like to culture tigriopus due to their size but I've already got tisbes in and I don't have any transparent vases left. Galaxy sounds like the same deal as phyto - feast, except with copepods.

 

[Gretchacha]

I’m very curious about your post - what are eco complete and np+? And do you mean AF life source mud and TLF marine snow? How do you culture & dose this?

To be more specific:
Dr Tim’s Eco-Balance
Tropic Marin Plus-NP
Brightwell Aquatics Coral Amino
AF Life Source Mud
Tropic Marin Reef Snow
Sometimes I add Red Sea Trace- Color part D, like maybe once a quarter.

Plus NP has nitrogen, phosphorus and carbohydrates in the right ratio to foster bacterial growth without additions from tank water.

Eco-balance has a bacteria that out competes Vibrio.

Dr Tims has a “recipe” for optimizing coral color that you can use to start your culture and dosing. The simplest bacteria slurry is just tank water, a capfull of bacteria starter and a squirt of Plus NP in a quart jar left overnight. Works well. I started like that and then played around with adding aminos and other elements. I figure if I load the bacteria, then I can keep some of those amino’s and minor elements out of the water column for unhelpful organisms to utilize before the corals absorb them. Just my hypothesis.

Also, go slow when adding this to your system, if you overdo it in the beginning it can cause a bacterial bloom.

https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ColorUp_Your_Corals-prescription_recipe.pdf