Phytoplankton Culture

[lmedhus]

Hey guys,

So... to start: I have a 65 gallon reef aquarium. My params are great except for pH, which is 8.0-8.1...
I have a Naso tang, sailfin tang, 3 false percs, 2 chromis, 1 Haddoni carpet nem, an RBTA, 1 yellow gorgonian, electric flame scallop, Xenia, zooanthids, some chaeto, LR, live sand, 65 Gal, protein skimmer, Fluval canister filter 306, 2 hydra HD led lights (downloaded expert settings), 2 850 PHs, heater etc....... Just giving y'all all the info for my reef tank.

SO, my question is:

How can I have a live population of phytoplankton for my filter feeders in my tank so that they can constantly feed on them? I understand that my filters may prohibit this live colonization of my tank. If colonized, will the phytoplankton pass through my mech. filtration or would they get stuck? That is my primary concern.

PS my freaking Haddoni and RBTA are in the back of the tank....unable to be seen... UGH!! any tips?

Thank you!!!

 

[Lasse]

I think it is more or less impossible to have selfreproductive phytoplankton in our tanks. I think that you have to cultivate them outside the tank and with help of a doser put them into the DP. I make a juice of my harvest Chaeto and dose it during night time into my aquaria. it seems to be good for filtrating animals - including my clams.

Your pH is what should be espected with a CO2 level in outside air around 400 ppm

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Sallstrom]

Most of the common phytoplankton are the size 3-20 μm, so they will go through most types of mesh. But they are plankton and lives in the open waters, so they will probably not survive or reproduce in large enough numbers in a reef tank due to skimmers, rocks, filter feeders, pumps etc.

We dose live phytoplankton 24/7 in a experiment tank at my work. We culture the phytoplankton in separate culture buckets and then fill a couple of dosing buckets every morning. The dosing buckets have air bubbles, and the phytoplankton is dosed out during the day by dosing pumps.

 

[sde1500]

Yea, to echo the others, no chance to get any real good continuous population in the DT. Not without clouding it so much you can't really see anything in it. Best culture outside the tank and dose it.

 

[lmedhus]

Okay. Thank you all, I appreciate your responses. Any good links on how to get set up with a dosing system and a culture?

 

[mx36]

We dose live phytoplankton 24/7 in a experiment tank at my work.

How long have you been doing this? Any noticeable good or bad differences that you have seen with it yet?

 

[sde1500]

Okay. Thank you all, I appreciate your responses. Any good links on how to get set up with a dosing system and a culture?

It is pretty easy, get a good starter culture, a couple 2 liter bottles, light, f/2 fertilizer and air pump. Follow the directions in the starter culture, I used one from Florida Aqua farms, run the light about 12 hours a day, and keep it bubbling 24/7. Split the culture in half weekly, use half the culture to add new saltwater and fertilizer to keep it going, use the other half to dose.

 

[Sallstrom]

How long have you been doing this? Any noticeable good or bad differences that you have seen with it yet?

Almost a year I think. I wanted to try a couple of NPS corals on phytoplankton feeding. That didn't work out too well, but the other photosynthetic corals like Acropora have done well. Good feeding response. But if they grow better than without the feeding I can't say. Too many factors.