Phyto Crash

[friskaburger]

Hey all,
Been culturing phyto (nanno) for about a month now, harvest once per week in these ~1.7L glass containers. Today I took a look and my culture turned a very different green than the usual healthy looking dark green that it turns. I assume my batch was contaminated? Has anyone experienced this before and what are some good methods to avoid this? Apologies for the black banding, the LED lights don't play nice with my phone camera. Culture is on the right, left is my not so great pod culture I started. Stats below:

1.7L Culture Container
Air Pump into rigid tubing, quite bubbly
Nanno culture
~2mL F/2 every week when I start a new batch.

 

[Doctorgori]

yes, phyto cultures can crash all the time, and that olive hue “usually” means crash is close ( some types are sorta olive toned naturally, depending…)
…usually even at that stage you can parse some out and start again …
also over time it’s possible for your own cultures to become sort of crash resistant … not a certainty tho

 

[DaJMasta]

There can be a lot of colors they go and a lot of potential causes, but you can at least somewhat reduce the frequency with sterilization techniques and contamination precautions. In my experience, nannochloropsis is one that is somewhat more prone to problems - just seems less hardy in terms of crashing when compared to tetraselmis or some diatoms.

In any case, consider the potential vectors for contamination, then try to improve on your procedures or clean your equipment to lessen the chance in the future:
Is your culture vessel and everything that goes in it clean to start?
Is your culture water clean? Have you used anything that could cross contaminate (for example, the pipette used for the refractometer to check salinity)?
Is your fertilizer clean? Is it stored in a cool, dark place? Have you done anything to keep it from growing (some manufacturers mention lowering pH of the fertilizer to 3 or so to prevent things from taking hold, though this may not be suitable for all formulations)?
Is your starting culture clean? If you have multiple strains or multiple lines of the same culture, keep them separate when restarting a new batch - mixing them could mean that a single bad batch could spoil everything down the line.
Is anything being introduced to your culture while it grows? Splatters of water from another system or culture? Do you have a filter on your airline, or could the pump be contaminated (I used filters on mine, but managed to get a small amount of mold on the prefilter of my air pump which over time contaminated quite a number of cultures)?

The "correct" way to culture means being very careful about sterilization procedures beyond what's easily achievable at home (autoclaving culture medium, sanitizing all equipment, sometimes disposable bags as culture vessels), but if you're being fairly careful about your methods and potential cross contamination vectors, you shouldn't have to dump a spoiled culture all that often.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Yep. It happens. I currently have two species and have to be careful not to cross contaminate.

When you clean the containers, use some rubbing alcohol to rinse and then rinse again and let dry.

Always keep a small container of it in the fridge for a crashed batch so you can re-seed. Should hold up to 6 months.

Good luck! When it gets going, you will have lots to add to the tank and that is good.

 

[friskaburger]

Thanks all!
I do have quite a bit in the fridge so I restarted a new batch with some, hopefully it'll be ok. Thanks for all the advice, I'll need to inspect my air pump and see if I need a filter on it. I'm wondering if I might have an issue with it being a little too warm and humid in there, as I use the same area for seed starting and I've got a lot of flats of seeds going next to it now.

I generally sterilize my containers with isopropyl alcohol and start in a fresh new cleaned container each week. I'm wondering if perhaps I need to think about putting some filter floss or something in the vent hole at the top of the container to prevent anything from drifting in.

Thanks for the tip about the ferts, I should store them somewhere else perhaps that's a little cooler and less bright as I store them right now next to the grow containers under a light.

 

[DaJMasta]

You probably don't need anything on the vents for the vessels unless they are wide open - the force of the air being driven in will keep most stuff out, but you don't want anything dripping on it, for example.