Phyto Culturing Setups

[Mmoore0324]

Let's see your phyto culturing setups. From basic to elaborate. Anyone auto dosing phyto?

 

[Mmoore0324]

My current setup. Doing something a little different than I’ve done in the past. My thought process was a longer vessel would give the cells more light exposure and hopefully reduce some settling. On my second batch of nano and so far so good.

 

[DmitryB]

I'll take pix of mine tonight. Have 3 jars going from ReefBySteele. 2 Phyto (Nanno, haven't tried others) and 1 pods. One thing for the Phyto I'm trying to figure out is if I can switch the light strips to a flexible one. The hard tube sticks out too much and so much light spilling. Anybody using flexible LEDs to wrap around the jars? Are they as good?

 

[EnterName]

I have a very basic, but stable setup that works for the little plankton I need. I could scale up the cultures but as I tend to get very lazy with their maintenance I prefer to keep it simple. If someone is interested in the details I have already written a "tutorial" on how to set this up appropriately.

Right now I'm experimenting with Tetraselmis suecica which has a rather "unique" behavior compared to other phytoplankton. When parameters suddenly change it swims to the bottom and switches to a rather dormant state like it suddenly becomes benthic instead of planktonic. This might actually be helpful for it to survive in a reef tank for longer than other phytoplankton which just ends up in the skimmer, a UV filter or gets caught by corals and other filter feeders. So far the better survival compared to other phytoplankton is just a theory though.

(100x and 630x magnification of T. suecica cultured from a starter in a rather bad shape)​

 

[Mmoore0324]

I'll take pix of mine tonight. Have 3 jars going from ReefBySteele. 2 Phyto (Nanno, haven't tried others) and 1 pods. One thing for the Phyto I'm trying to figure out is if I can switch the light strips to a flexible one. The hard tube sticks out too much and so much light spilling. Anybody using flexible LEDs to wrap around the jars? Are they as good?

I’ve never used flexible strips but I know plenty of people do with success. I would make sure to get at least IP67 rated for water proofing. The Poseidon systems use the flexible lights.

 

[Mmoore0324]

I have a very basic, but stable setup that works for the little plankton I need. I could scale up the cultures but as I tend to get very lazy with their maintenance I prefer to keep it simple. If someone is interested in the details I have already written a "tutorial" on how to set this up appropriately.

Right now I'm experimenting with Tetraselmis suecica which has a rather "unique" behavior compared to other phytoplankton. When parameters suddenly change it swims to the bottom and switches to a rather dormant state like it suddenly becomes benthic instead of planktonic. This might actually be helpful for it to survive in a reef tank for longer than other phytoplankton which just ends up in the skimmer, a UV filter or gets caught by corals and other filter feeders. So far the better survival compared to other phytoplankton is just a theory though.

(100x and 630x magnification of T. suecica cultured from a starter in a rather bad shape)​

Very interesting. Do you know what region T. Suecica is generally found??

 

[EnterName]

Very interesting. Do you know what region T. Suecica is generally found??

AlgaeBase says:

(as Tetraselmis suecica (Kylin) Butcher)
Europe: Baltic Sea (Hällfors 2004), Britain (You & al. 2024), Germany (Scholz & Liebezeit 2012), Portugal (Moita & Vilarinho 1999), Scandinavia (Karlson & al. 2018).
Asia: East China Sea (Xu et al. 2016), Japan (Hori, Norris & Chihara 1986).

(as Platymonas suecica Kylin)
Europe: Sweden (Kylin 1949).

So usually it prefers a bit lower temperatures than our tanks.

 

[ApolloReef]

Here is my setup. For the cultures, I used 1.5 gal jars with flexible lights. I typically wrap the lights around, and then put a bunch of shrink wrap over them and then duct tape the shrink wrap. Seems to prevent any water issues. For the water, I have a 6 gal bucket where I drilled holes in the top to set up a 15W UV. A pump in the bucket push the water through the UV and back to the bucket to recirculate. I can add water and salt to the bucket as needed and the pump mixes the salt and water and sterilizes it at the same time. The only issue is that I make way too much phyto, but larger bunches seem more stable and less likely to crash.