Lighting Period For Brewing Phytoplankton?

[ReefChasers Verified Sponsor]

So when you harvest you're using the same container or sterilizing before adding f/2?

I've been rolling right into my second batch in the same unsterilized container.

It gets a crusty yellow, it starts greenish and than goes crusty yellow which I than know it crashes. I just don't get it

I keep work area clean but rarely sterilize on the same batch. Occasionally I will replace rodi tubing etc with fresh clean lines. Also occasionally I replace the bag I use (so I can just throw it away and not have to clean container).

I always sterilize the start of a brand new batch but rarely ever on a current, rolling batch.

Can keep rolling for many months.

Are you using clean utensils to draw/insert the f/2? How much f2 fert are you using per gallon?

on a freshly started batch are you harvesting the very first week, if so, how much of it are you harvesting and how much are you leaving behind?

Plenty of scholarly articles you can review regarding the optimal photoperiod for microalgae growth but i am sure other intervals will work to varying degrees!

 

[dthom]

ReefChasers is on point with everything I did in the past. We were raising several species of phyto for our clownfish breeding setup. People often make it much more difficult then it needs to be. Honestly for me, when I "tried really hard" is when I would run into problems and start getting weaker cultures. Just like with our tanks, being consistent is the KEY.

Also, like was stated earlier, you will likely have more than enough producing than you need. Need more, just add more bottles!

 

[ericmv]

I tend to have the opposite problem if you figure you are harvesting at home for personal use and only doing 1 gallon batches that means your weekly harvest is only around 1800ml. My 150 gallon at-home-reef gobbles up the 1800ml a week and loves every minute of it. I mean that's dosing wayyyyy more than what the sellers of phytoplankton typically recommend (because if you dose this much you'd have to go broke trying to buy it :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:) but I find it's the absolute best form of food I can feed so I tend to do so very heavily especially since it's free when harvesting at-home.


At work we harvest in 5 gallon batches about 4 of them going at once so we get nice weekly yields, still we dump about a 1/2 gallon every other day into each of our systems (3x a week) but these are 1200 gal systems. Best food is free food and hey live phytoplankton, you can't go wrong with that!

If anyone is interested in a 5 gallon DIY reactor let me know.... there are some options! lol

You don’t get spikes feeding a lot of phytoplankton?

 

[Rule69]

I tend to have the opposite problem if you figure you are harvesting at home for personal use and only doing 1 gallon batches that means your weekly harvest is only around 1800ml. My 150 gallon at-home-reef gobbles up the 1800ml a week and loves every minute of it. I mean that's dosing wayyyyy more than what the sellers of phytoplankton typically recommend (because if you dose this much you'd have to go broke trying to buy it :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:) but I find it's the absolute best form of food I can feed so I tend to do so very heavily especially since it's free when harvesting at-home.


At work we harvest in 5 gallon batches about 4 of them going at once so we get nice weekly yields, still we dump about a 1/2 gallon every other day into each of our systems (3x a week) but these are 1200 gal systems. Best food is free food and hey live phytoplankton, you can't go wrong with that!

If anyone is interested in a 5 gallon DIY reactor let me know.... there are some options! lol

I know this is an old post but do you still have the plans for the 5 gallon diy reactor?

 

[ReefChasers Verified Sponsor]

Sure no problem. I used a 5 gallon big mouth plastic carboy fermenter (I see on amazon only the glass one available now). Amazon does list a 3 gallon plastic and a 7 gallon plastic though

Then I purchased these. I embeded the light strips (two of them needed to go the full distance on the 5 gal carboy) in the cord covers and I wrapped the cord covers around the carboy. Then I used like an entire roll of electrical tape to fully encase the entire thing (incase I splash etc while messing with it).

You can get the carboy with or without a bottom dispensor spigot. You can't really use plastic bags to save on cleaning if you use the spigot though.

You'll need an air pump and an air line and the rubber stopper for the top of the carboy may need to have an additional hole added (to allow the air to escape).

You should use one way filters on the air pump (so there isn't a siphon problem, or you should mount the air pump above the phytoreactor).

Hope this info helps and gets you on the right path anyways.