Phyto live VS powder

Oliver94 · Aug 2, 2015

Hey!
I hope you are having a great weekend!
I am thinking to start a phytoplankton culture,to feed my 120g reef,and in order to raise some rotifers and copepods.But thinking that we have in the market lots of phytoplankton powder,that are much more easier to use than having a culture,what is the advantages of having a live culture?
will rotifers and copepods only feed on live "phytoplankton"? what about the difference on adding to the tank the phyto-powder over live-phyto?

Thank you in advanced!

Oliver94 · Aug 3, 2015

Little up
Have a great week!

Myka · Aug 3, 2015

I raised Clownfish and some others species for a few years as well as rotifers and Tigger pods. I used RotiGrow Plus from Reed Mariculture which is a dead liquid phytoplankton product that's been frozen. It's a mix, not a monoculture. Check it out on the Reed website. It depends which types of copepods you're wanting to culture, but RG+ works fine for Tiggers.

Oliver94 · Aug 3, 2015

Thanks Myka

will check these [emoji106][emoji106]

Harold Green · Aug 3, 2015

In the long run it might be cheaper to raise your own. I keep six two liter bottles of nannclor. going all the time and add some daily to my 210 for the corals to eat. Main expense is the fertilizer to feed it. If you have a sump with a refusium it's easy to grow pods in it, just add a little green water to it daily but you need a slow flow to keep it from flushing out too quickly. I add a squirt of liquid invert food and a bit of coral frenzy to the green water before pouring it into the tank and the corals open immediately.

Oliver94 · Aug 4, 2015

The problem is that in my country i can only find powder phyto
And to send from outside the country surely gonna have problems at customs.. That is only why i am going on dry powder phytoplankton.

In fact I have set the culture yesterday night in a 2L container filled less than half with saltwater, also i don't find any pods in LFS here,i was able to collect about 10 from my refugium and till now everything is doing fine. But i am only afraid that the pollution of the powder phyto would kill my pods, should i change the water? Or keep it as it is?

Thanks guys!

Harold Green · Aug 4, 2015

Don't know if it would still be a problem with customs but culture discs are available. Live phyto on a gel medium. You just scrape some of it off into your salt water and fertilize it with f/2 and add light and air.