Phyto culture time without harvest.

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I have recently set up 2 thursdays ago 3 phyto cultures, (tetra, thalassiosira diatoms, and isocrysis galbana) and a tiger pod culture. 1 gallon each.

I harvested thursday, all 3 phytos did astoundingly well, darker than the cultures I started with, but my harvest is almost ready again and I will be away from tomorrow to Sunday. Is 10 days safe to leave these cultures under automation? I was always planning to harvest at 7 and want to make sure I shouldn't harvest early.

I seteralized all my containers just now, but would like to hold off if it should be okay.

I figured for the pods I will strain enough out to stop them from turning the water clear in a day, maybe 80% of them and they will be fine until Sunday.

Advice?

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Anyone out there using 1ml per liter f2 let their culture go longer than a week?

 

[Mikeltee]

Anyone out there using 1ml per liter f2 let their culture go longer than a week?

In my 3 month experience, 1ml/l mercers f2 lasts a week. I can stretch it to 9 days but it starts to crash. I recently added 1.25ml/l so my tetra could catch up to my iso and it went as planned for a total of 9 days. You just need to experiment. Every fertilizer is different.

Here's an example... I inoculate 750ml of iso in 3.5l. I add 2.5ml part A and 2.5ml part B. If it goes over 7 days, it starts to crash. The guy I got it from uses 500ml inoculation for 5 gallons. He uses the same ratio of fertilizer. His goes 14 days and it much thicker than mine.

I need to up my game and start testing for nutrients. I'm not sure how the Hanna is going to react to a dark green or brown baseline sample. It doesn't make sense to me so I haven't tried it. I'm also confused why people test for Nitrates instead of Nitrites as there is no biological filter... or is phyto a biological filter? My phyto is happy and I dose 2.5ml/g to my tanks and the nutrients aren't affected so idk... seems like everything is just about perfect. Having the cultures start to crash if they go a couple days further is more proof that I am used the proper ratio of nutrients. Have a little fertilizer left over while the phyto is sitting in the refrigerator for a week might be in our best interest as well.