New take on dosing phyto

Subsea

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When someone tells me that phytoplankton doesn’t need to be alive to be nutritious, I say define nutritious.

For less than $30, I sent Gracilaria Parvispora to a regional agriculture lab to analyze protein constituents. Unless external sources of protein are added, in no way will dry phyto approach living healthy phytoplankton in nutrition. I challenge refrigerated cultures to the same analysis.
 

Ardeus

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I have been culturing and dosing phyto since October 2020.

The only difference I noticed in my tank is more sponges. I stopped culturing and I will stop dosing when I finish the last bottle.
 

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I use sodium nitrate, and trisodium phosphate it's what I have on hand. Have to buffer it with an acid though. Mainly dosing phyto to get nutrients in tank and make pods explode so I can get some fish I want. To add I have a few picky fish in there already that are only eating live food. They clean the pods out quick. Going through about 1 gallon of pods, and about 2 liter of phyto a week doing this between a few tanks. Pods in back. All gallon jars.

“Mainly dosing phyto to get nutrients up in tank”.

As an organic gardner, I grow soil that grows vegetables. In much the same way, phytoplankton grows multiple food webs of micro fana & fauna that more carbon up the food chain via the microbial loop.
 

Dkmoo

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180g DT

240ish total volume
wow - that's about 80 to 90ML per 25G of SW, or about 8x - 9x the "popular" dosages that's flowing around.

I'm trying to get my tank to a condition similar to yours and currently at 30ml per 25G for week 2. So far i haven't noticed any difference in terms of algae control. How long did it take for you to ramp up to your current dosage? or did you dump in that much on day 1?

i'm also dosing vibrant, which based on the massive vibrant thread is OK with phyto - tho i'm not sure if they meant OK for live phyto as a food source vs as a form of live nutrient control....
 

Subsea

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@Lasse

Do you have data for nutritional value of fresh live harvested phytoplankton compared to refrigerated and stored. What happens to nutritional value of bottled phytoplankton when stored?

Their are various products that are “non living“ phytoplankton. Are additives added to bring nutritional value up?

Are you crawfishing this summer?
A Cajun Aggie
Patrick
 

Lasse

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Are you crawfishing this summer?
I´m not fishing but we maybe buy some from the shop. I live on the west coast - we normally eat a type of "crayfish" from the sea -in english Norwegian lobster - Nephrops norvegicus or Langoustine in French.

Sincerely Lasse
 

Dana Riddle

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@Dennis Cartier,

what fertilizer formula was used by @Dana Riddle . I use Mercer of Montana modified Guillard F2 and I grow Tetraselmis phytoplankto.

If I understood your post, because the ratio of phosphate was insufficient, the culture slowed growth and needed harvesting with much residual nutrients left in culture. Instead of dealing with unused nutrients in culture why not enhance phosphate concentration so that all nutrients are consumed simultaneously.
I use Fritz F2. Recently, a metering pump adds 200ml of the phyto culture daily.
 

Subsea

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I use Fritz F2. Recently, a metering pump adds 200ml of the phyto culture daily.

Could you link your thread on continuous phyto culture.

Also, what are your thoughts on live phytoplankton used for bio mediation in a reef tank?

 

Dana Riddle

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Subsea

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Note that my thread asks a question about effects of phytoplankton and nutrient control, and is not a definitive statement. To really get this figured out, one would have to look at import/exports of nutrient, which be a tedious process.

I am with you, I don’t need more data to enjoy my tanks. I can observe the proof and it is pleasing to me.

I will be following your phyto dosing thread with renewed interest.
 

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Subsea

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Here is my 2 cents on this topic. I have been interested in this over the years and studied what results others were getting. A point that comes up again and again, is that you want to prevent dosing the left over fertilizer into the tank if possible. In Dana's thread on this, he noted that his particular phyto of choice was running out of phosphate during the growth phase. So other nutrients would be left over in excess after the phosphate was consumed by the phyto. In this example, phosphate is limiting, but other phytos may consume nutrients in differing ratios and have a different combination of leftover nutrients.

The normal way of removing the leftover fertilizer is to 'wash' the phyto and separate the phyto from the culture fertilizer. This involves processes and equipment not available to the average hobbyist.

To reduce the impact of dosing possibly leftover nutrients, one approach is to condense the phyto to allow the most phyto to be dosed with the least amount of leftover fertilizer nutrients. A way of accomplishing this is to take advantage of the fact that phyto will settle and condense when cooled. Placing a container of phyto in a fridge will result in the phyto settling into a condensed layer in the lower portion of the container. Dosing from the container, drawing from the condensed phyto, will allow a higher ratio of phyto to culture solution to be dosed. As an example, using a 1L culture container, you could dose most of the phyto, while only dosing 250 ml of the solution.

This approach works best when used in a fish room and a small fridge can be utilized for holding the phyto, a dosing pump along with a injection loop. Where other additives require refrigeration, they can also be included in this type of setup. For additives that require periodic mixing, their reservoir can be placed on magnetic mixers, etc.

For those where everything has to fit inside a stand, a single bottle wine cooler may be able to be utilized to cool and condense the phyto (though I have not tried this, so YMMV).

Anyway I think that dosing live phyto both as a means of nutrient control and feeding the zooplankton in the water column is a worthy idea to explore.

Dennis
Let’s expound on nutrients from phytoplankton culture getting into display. I say bring it on. In all of my established systems, I dose ChaetoGrow and ammonia. (I should feed more raw protein.).

If the nutrients are good for phytoplankton, I say they are good for my reef tank which is heavy on inverts & filter feeders.

@Reef Nutrition
With respect to feeding live phytoplankton to a monoculture of Copepod I decided to illuminate this zooplankton culture on the same light cycle as phytoplankton culture, both at 16hrs. Will phytoplankton continue to grow while Copepods are eating them. With that thought, is it best to feed phytoplankton to display with the lights on?
 
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