Home brewed phytoplankton culture.

Bobby daniels

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Ok in at a loss. I've been trying to culture my own phytoplankton for a few months now. The first batch I had great success with. I've tried 3 other times and my culture just dies. After about 3 to 4 days it just turns clear. The only thing that has changed since the first batch is its gotten a hell of allot hotter in my garage. Does phyto not grow after a certain temp. I've been trying to do this in my garage but with Oklahoma summers it does get around 100°. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me. The first pic is 3 days after the 2nd. Any help is greatly appreciated

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Dilan Patel

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You can look at my thread called Phytoplankton experiment and I list all the steps ive taken! But from my understanding you need to lower that temp to around 74-80 degrees. Get some really good aeration and light it for about 18hrs. I dig a little more deeper into what ive tried and success and failures in the thread. I also think you should increase the f/2 not sure how much 2 cap fulls is ml wise.
 

jeffchapok

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Well I don't know how much 2 caps is, but I start off with about 4 ml of f2 per gal. If after 3 or 4 days it's not as dark as I'd like I'll add 2 more ml/gal and then let it run at least 2 more days. I keep this up until I get to the desired darkness. Usually within 8 - 10 days it's almost inky black.

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Thespammailaccount

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Was just having this conversation earlier with @TriggerFinger Phytoplankton is pretty hardy when it comes to temperature but I am not sure what the thermal threshold is to where it can negatively affect the culture. If it was not the heat it was more than likely some sort of contamination. Using water from your tank sharing equipment some airborne bacteria enter the culture from the pump to the lid can all cause a culture to crash. I run multiple cultures at once so there is a better chance that at least one culture makes it. I feel your pain I have been where your at have lost more cultures than I can count
 
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Bobby daniels

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Just measured the cap, it's 5ml. So it's getting enough food. I did increase the photosynthesis time just now to 18hrs. I'll see if that helps. Thanks for the help everyone. Dilan Patel, I'll take a read thru your thread see if maybe I'm missing something.
 

creativeballance

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I'm having the same type of issues. My culture is indoors, so I'm not having a temp issue.

I'm thinking a contamination issue from my air pump - last round I sterilized the tubes and bottle.
 

jeffchapok

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I run my light 24x7. I also don't worry too much about contamination. I've even transferred tank water over just to see what happened (nothing). I also tried to hatch brine shrimp in one batch (they didn't live and the shells made a mess, but the phyto turned out okay).

Maybe I've just gotten lucky.
 

Silent

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Phyto is such a basic life form it is almost hard to kill. Normally there is only 3 things that will keep you from being able to grow it and that is 1) contamination, 2) not enough light (amount and length), 3) not enough food.
Temp shouldn't be an issue because it will survive for a while in the fridge and it will reprodce faster in warmer temps.
My guess is the hot garage is causing them to repeoduce quicker and consume more food and are starving and dying off. Assuming #1 and #2 above are not an issue.
 
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