Phytoplankton for control of Phophates and Nitrate in the Reef

[Dr Blue Thumb]

Nitrates and Phosphate etc are removed through corals, bacteria, photosynthetic sponges and phytoplankton either directly or indirectly?

The DOC and POC are consumed by copepods etc, coral, bacteria and sponges, breaking down the organics before turning into inorganics?
(like a skimmer)

The left over inorganics are then consumed by coral, phytosynthetic sponges, bacteria, phytoplankton and or macro algae or algae on the glass?

Now if you watch your algae on the glass, and the speed on which your macro grows, this will tell you your inorganics levels? (caution use this advice @ your own risk)

 

[Dr Blue Thumb]

Phytoplankton increases sponges, sponges reproduce and create more sponges. Sponges take out organic matter/inorganic matter before it turns to P/N and into neusience algae, like a refuge/skimmer does.

Any excess live phyto grows and takes out inorganics before turning to nuisence algae

Any extra fertilizer in phyto which should be low, will be consumed by phtosynthetic bacteria,phyto, coral, photosynthetic sponges etc.

Phyto increases coral, coral consume organics and inorganics acting like a refuge (inorganics) and a skimmer (organics).

Asexual reproduction and sponge anatomy:










Sexual reproducion in sponges:

 

[Reef Nutrition]

Is each species cultured separately, or can they be together? I started my culture from a batch at my lfs. I have no idea what species it is.

The species of marine microalgae that we work with need to be cultured separately. If you were to try to start a culture from our Phyto-Feast Live, Nannochloropsis would dominate along with a small population of Synechococcus. In the end, our customers buy from us because they don't want to culture algae, especially our large-scale aquaculture customers.

-Chad

 

[Dr Blue Thumb]

https://www.livingoceansfoundation.org/education/portal/course/feeding/#predation




Coral comsume phyto through their cilia? But first the coral disolves the phyto in it's belly breaking it down into a small organic.

To get to the belly the phyto go through pores on the outside of the body that lead to the stomach or through their throat. Either way this is where phyto/bacteria is absorbed ultimately through the hairs like structures that are responsible for moving the water around in their bellies and the absorption of nutrients and food.

A shrimp for example breaks down inside the stomach then gets consumed

Please like me know if this sounds correct?

 

[Dr Blue Thumb]

Organisms such as phytoplankton starve if they live off it's stored nutrients making them less nutritious. I will look into culturing my phytoplankton by dosing inorganics daily and then measuring density and checking for dead cells.




I did this experiemnt on a 20G, where it was full of soft coral. This soft coral consumes organics and inroganics.

Autotrophic/heterotrophic and mixotrophic sponges,bacteria were also present

Other organic consumers were: Copepods,mini snails, chittons,worms,mini serpent stars,. limpets, bacteria etc.

System included: Tap water @ 150 ppm,heater,flow,1 cup of GAC reactor, light,L.R,aragonite,pod piles,2 percs,algae blenny, 3 dsb.

Maintenence: 10 % weekly water change. Daily 1 cup addition of phytoplankton. Monthly 1 cup change of carbon,feeding every other day. scrap one side of glass every other day while leaving the back dirty.

Testing: salinity and temp that is it.

On this 20G, I was up to 1 cup dailly of nannochloropsus oculata.

I make the assumption that the large amount of phyto i cultured with f/2 fertilizer in it, may have extra inroganics in it from unused f2 ferilizer.

Even the tap water has chlorine etc in it.

But that it was used up once the large amount of phyto was added because the bioload of consumers, consumed a large portion of the phyto, while the small amount of phyto left over grew with photosynthesis. When the unused phyto grew, it took out the chlorine,ammonia,inorganics in the tank along with the waste from the fish's, if there was any left over from the critters,coral,sponges.photosynthetic bacteria not cunsuming the organics before breaking down into inorganics.



I want to prove that pyto can take out inorganics whether that is directly or indirectly! I would also like to run over my next 100G experiemnt with people too, if anyone is interested? I want to keep it similar to my last experiemnt but take it to the next level!

This time with a small refuge and skimmer to see if I can get by without scraping the glass as much and to analyze the growth of cheeto and skimate. along with lowering the f2 fertilizer in the culture of phyto and adding another phyto higher in DHA and that is motile such as iso phyto.

 

[Bunnee911]

Nice what size tank?

29g Biocube.

 

[Katrina71]

I am glad you brought this up Dr. Blue Thumb!

There are a lot of live microalgae suppliers that are beginning/continuing to claim that phytoplankton will reduce nitrates, phosphates, etc. in reef aquaria. To be quite frank, I don't think this is good to tell people. I have even seen people say that you can do fewer water changes if you are adding live phytoplankton daily into a reef tank; this is also not good to say for obvious reasons. We have been selling phytoplankton into aquaculture and the hobby for a long time and we have never seen anyone show us unequivocally that phytoplankton significantly reduces nitrate and phosphate, which, by the way, aren't that only things they take up. Also keep in mind, that even if they do take up significant amounts of nitrate and phosphate, you would then need to remove them from the system: what goes in must come out. Even when the algae is being consumed, not all of it is being converted to biomass which means the animals consuming it are releasing waste, which needs to be exported by normal methods.

Macroalgae is much more beneficial at reducing nitrate and phosphate in an aquarium due to its capacity for growth and its significantly larger biomass than microalgae. You can also physically cut it out to remove the biomass that has taken up the nitrogen and phosphorous. Algae scrubbers are definitely worth it, but must be used properly for them to be effective.

Phytoplankton, whether it is viable or not, is strictly a food item and that's how we deal with it. Without proof and research into the matter, telling people that it will filter their water significantly is highly misleading. We are all for people growing and selling phytoplankton into the market, but the market needs to be informed properly or you run the risk of giving algae a bad name if it doesn't live up to their expectations. For example: Let's say I told people that they can reduce water changes if they use our Phyto-Feast Live because it reduces nitrate and phosphate. They take my advice and then begin seeing their tank doing worse and worse, possibly losing animals because they weren't keeping up with proper aquarium maintenance techniques. I would be culpable and they would have every right to come after me. This will require a lot of research, but keep in mind that every tank is different and every species of algae is different, so there is no way to say "one size fits all".

I'm very happy to see this being discussed as phytoplankton is becoming more popular in the hobby.

-Chad

Any reason you can't or shouldn't do macro and phytoplankton together?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Any reason you can't or shouldn't do macro and phytoplankton together?

You mean grow macro and feed phyto? That's fine. Feeding both is also fine.

 

[SDdiver]

Interesting experiment, how's it coming along? I'm doing something similar with the goal of outcompeting nuisance algae.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

What I do is I go crazy investing thousands of dollars into a habitat for my organisms. Then I will seperate those which can make me money into their own habitats. From there I sell and make money to fund my experiments. I do not make tons of money, but One day I will buy a shrooms like this:

Keep at it. The man who perfected the cultured pearl, took 20 years for his eureka moment. No matter how many defeats, victory is so sweet. I'm 50yrs young. Been trying to cultivate certain corals, still impossible to cultivate. But I know my eureka moments coming someday .
And always remember, it's not what you know, but, who you know. If you fall down , get up. Keep moving. I've been an entreprenuer since 18 yrs old. I would never go back in time and do it different. Never give up.




Then I will sell it for a more reasonable price. All the while learning about things such as:

Business
electricity
carpentry
hospitality
photography
videography
biology
marine biology
computers
wesites
forums
chemistry
geology
propagation
aquaculturing
microscopes
etc etc I enjoy it and wish to one day make I living @ this one day, even If I need to go to school to do it. I am currently suffering from adhd,anxiety,depression,autism (Aspergers),schizo-affective disorder,agorophobia, these are mostly disabiliities and I am on disability ODSP, plus I have a paper route, this is what supplies me with the income I need to try to turn a hobby and something I love into a career.

If I fail, then Oh well, my dream is to open up an aquaculture facility here in Windsor ontario Canada, ranging from selling copepods, phyto to coral and sponges to name a few things. If it does not work then maybe 10 years from now I will hopfully be hired by a a company in the oil, medical, sewage threatment etc industry

I would like some suggestions I am not getting younger? should I give up on my dream? bite the bullet and work a Job where people will tease me and spit on me? or should I try something different? and become an entreprenuer?

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Keep at it. The man who perfected the cultured pearl, took 20 years for his eureka moment. No matter how many defeats, victory is so sweet. I'm 50yrs young. Been trying to cultivate certain corals, still impossible to cultivate. But I know my eureka moments coming someday .
And always remember, it's not what you know, but, who you know. If you fall down , get up. Keep moving. I've been an entreprenuer since 18 yrs old. I would never go back in time and do it different. Never give up.

 

[mitch91175]

Any update on this experiment? I culture my own phyto as well and feed at least 5 cups weekly to my 240 gallon. I also run my skimmer, GFO, and UV sterilizer as well (and I know that my skimmer isn't removing all of the phyto - if it were that good at removing all nutrients everyone would have it). I recently changed all of my rock work and had an increase in ammonia, nitrates, and phosphates (I have a sand bed so moved it around). I didn't freak out just went about my business as normal. I did a few water changes and dosed my phyto as usual. Didn't loose any fish during the process. Not saying that the phyto was the reason since I also run GFO and a skimmer and not trying to prove that it is doing anything beneficial for me either. But I will say this, by now I would have had plenty of diatoms going on but I don't. My sand is as white as can be and all fish are doing great. Anemone, torch, wwc bounce are all just fine. I even added some rock that I had just sitting in salt water in my garage (BTW I didn't change the water in it either, just let it sit there and poured what ever I had left from water changes into the buckets) and I have very little diatoms on it.

I also have sand shifting stars (which for some reason some reefers just cannot keep alive - I don't have that problem though (maybe when the phyto dies and reaches the sandbed they eat it, who knows) in my cleanup crew so that can contribute to cleaner sandbed. I have plenty of sponges in my system as well (a little less now since I removed some when redoing the rock work). I'll continue to use phyto as long as I culture it. I also feed heavily so that is my reason for running the GFO.

FYI I carbon dose as well so with all of what I am doing I don't run into high nutrients but I have enough nutrients in my system where I don't need to intentionally does nitrates/phosphates because I have completely stripped my system of them (I know phyto has nitrates/phophates, but my meaning is I feel the phyto is more beneficial to my system than just dosing whatever people are dosing these days to increase nutrients from a system that is completely stripped of them). Here is a good article that I found online just giving info about phytoplankton: http://www.mesa.edu.au/atoz/phytoplankton.asp

Forgot to mention, I have no issue lacking pods in my tank either.

 

[living_tribunal]

I am glad you brought this up Dr. Blue Thumb!

There are a lot of live microalgae suppliers that are beginning/continuing to claim that phytoplankton will reduce nitrates, phosphates, etc. in reef aquaria. To be quite frank, I don't think this is good to tell people. I have even seen people say that you can do fewer water changes if you are adding live phytoplankton daily into a reef tank; this is also not good to say for obvious reasons. We have been selling phytoplankton into aquaculture and the hobby for a long time and we have never seen anyone show us unequivocally that phytoplankton significantly reduces nitrate and phosphate, which, by the way, aren't that only things they take up. Also keep in mind, that even if they do take up significant amounts of nitrate and phosphate, you would then need to remove them from the system: what goes in must come out. Even when the algae is being consumed, not all of it is being converted to biomass which means the animals consuming it are releasing waste, which needs to be exported by normal methods.

Macroalgae is much more beneficial at reducing nitrate and phosphate in an aquarium due to its capacity for growth and its significantly larger biomass than microalgae. You can also physically cut it out to remove the biomass that has taken up the nitrogen and phosphorous. Algae scrubbers are definitely worth it, but must be used properly for them to be effective.

Phytoplankton, whether it is viable or not, is strictly a food item and that's how we deal with it. Without proof and research into the matter, telling people that it will filter their water significantly is highly misleading. We are all for people growing and selling phytoplankton into the market, but the market needs to be informed properly or you run the risk of giving algae a bad name if it doesn't live up to their expectations. For example: Let's say I told people that they can reduce water changes if they use our Phyto-Feast Live because it reduces nitrate and phosphate. They take my advice and then begin seeing their tank doing worse and worse, possibly losing animals because they weren't keeping up with proper aquarium maintenance techniques. I would be culpable and they would have every right to come after me. This will require a lot of research, but keep in mind that every tank is different and every species of algae is different, so there is no way to say "one size fits all".

I'm very happy to see this being discussed as phytoplankton is becoming more popular in the hobby.

-Chad

I’m interested on getting your take on this (fan of yalls products by the way).

About a month ago, I became pretty focused on bulking up my pod population. A component of this was phyto feeding for them.

I started feeding about 20ml into my 65g display (100 total volume) and 5ml into a 10g frag tank I run daily.

About two weeks ago I started noticing my nutrients were bottoming out. I shut off the skimmer, cut fuge photoperiod to only 3 hours, removed 90% of my macrofauna, fed 3-4 times a day, and started having to dose .02ml of phosphates every single day.

Every afternoon, I’d come home and test for phosphates shocked to see it was near, or at, 0 every single day.

I then curiously checked my tank at night and discovered most all of my pods were gone (they are not yalls pods).

I kind of put and two together realizing I’ve been feeding heavy amounts of live phytos to a tank with effectively no pods.

I just added a few bottles of your tisbes to both tanks and am going to see if it makes an impact tomorrow.

Have you ever heard of/encountered something similar? In terms of major catalysts that can make a dent in phosphates/nitrates, the phytos are the only variable I can deduce in this situation.

Any info would be helpful as I’m kind of desperate at this point.

 

[Reef Nutrition]

I’m interested on getting your take on this (fan of yalls products by the way).

About a month ago, I became pretty focused on bulking up my pod population. A component of this was phyto feeding for them.

I started feeding about 20ml into my 65g display (100 total volume) and 5ml into a 10g frag tank I run daily.

About two weeks ago I started noticing my nutrients were bottoming out. I shut off the skimmer, cut fuge photoperiod to only 3 hours, removed 90% of my macrofauna, fed 3-4 times a day, and started having to dose .02ml of phosphates every single day.

Every afternoon, I’d come home and test for phosphates shocked to see it was near, or at, 0 every single day.

I then curiously checked my tank at night and discovered most all of my pods were gone (they are not yalls pods).

I kind of put and two together realizing I’ve been feeding heavy amounts of live phytos to a tank with effectively no pods.

I just added a few bottles of your tisbes to both tanks and am going to see if it makes an impact tomorrow.

Have you ever heard of/encountered something similar? In terms of major catalysts that can make a dent in phosphates/nitrates, the phytos are the only variable I can deduce in this situation.

Any info would be helpful as I’m kind of desperate at this point.

It's totally possible that daily dosing of the live phytoplankton is having an impact. I have heard this from a few hobbyists and even some store owners. Are you using our Phyto-Fest Live? By the way, we don't sell Tisbe sp. copepods, so you may have us mixed up with a competitor.

 

[Magellan]

I’m interested on getting your take on this (fan of yalls products by the way).

About a month ago, I became pretty focused on bulking up my pod population. A component of this was phyto feeding for them.

I started feeding about 20ml into my 65g display (100 total volume) and 5ml into a 10g frag tank I run daily.

About two weeks ago I started noticing my nutrients were bottoming out. I shut off the skimmer, cut fuge photoperiod to only 3 hours, removed 90% of my macrofauna, fed 3-4 times a day, and started having to dose .02ml of phosphates every single day.

Every afternoon, I’d come home and test for phosphates shocked to see it was near, or at, 0 every single day.

I then curiously checked my tank at night and discovered most all of my pods were gone (they are not yalls pods).

I kind of put and two together realizing I’ve been feeding heavy amounts of live phytos to a tank with effectively no pods.

I just added a few bottles of your tisbes to both tanks and am going to see if it makes an impact tomorrow.

Have you ever heard of/encountered something similar? In terms of major catalysts that can make a dent in phosphates/nitrates, the phytos are the only variable I can deduce in this situation.

Any info would be helpful as I’m kind of desperate at this point.

Was that the solution? Less Phyto?

 

[living_tribunal]

It's totally possible that daily dosing of the live phytoplankton is having an impact. I have heard this from a few hobbyists and even some store owners. Are you using our Phyto-Fest Live? By the way, we don't sell Tisbe sp. copepods, so you may have us mixed up with a competitor.

They were your tigger* pods. Too many pod conversations going on.

I was dosing a live phyto product from a competitor.

 

[living_tribunal]

Was that the solution? Less Phyto?

I believe I ended up finding what was going on. Why I do believe over doing the phytos had an impact, I believe the main culprit was my rock was binding the phosphates.

The rock was binding the phosphates at a rate of .03ppm per hour. I heavily dosed phosphates for about two weeks and have started saturating them. I also cut down phyto feeding to 3 days a week.

 

[Magellan]

I dose a slightly lower amount than the low end of the recommended dosage, every day in the early afternoon. Seems to be a really healthy amount for my tank.

 

[living_tribunal]

I dose a slightly lower amount than the low end of the recommended dosage, every day in the early afternoon. Seems to be a really healthy amount for my tank.

I was dosing .03ppm every hour when this was going on.

 

[Magellan]

I was dosing .03ppm every hour when this was going on.

Glad to hear you fixed it and it wasn’t the phyto, my tank loves that stuff.