Rhodomonas Help

[lpramos]

All, I have trouble culturing Rhodomonas in a Poseidon Reef System in my laundry closet. I sterilize w/30% Isoprophyl alcohol and use a new plastic bag for every batch.I'm in South FL and my place is around 77 degrees in the day and 73 degrees at night. Water is boiled and 26 PPT. Fertilizer is Fritz. I keep the jar lights on at 1/2 power and keep a fan blowing on the bottle to avoid overheating. But, still my cultures want to turn white. It's not dead. Still rosy and not a lot of dead cells on the bottom, but whiteish. Any advice?

While we're here... I culture Tetraselmis Chui, Isochrysis Galbana and Rhodomonas Salina. Anyone want to recommend a 4th strain? Thanks!

 

[cdemoss01]

Jeez.. this is interesting never heard of this before. Anyone good with this?

 

[Hawaiian AQ]

All, I have trouble culturing Rhodomonas in a Poseidon Reef System in my laundry closet. I sterilize w/30% Isoprophyl alcohol and use a new plastic bag for every batch.I'm in South FL and my place is around 77 degrees in the day and 73 degrees at night. Water is boiled and 26 PPT. Fertilizer is Fritz. I keep the jar lights on at 1/2 power and keep a fan blowing on the bottle to avoid overheating. But, still my cultures want to turn white. It's not dead. Still rosy and not a lot of dead cells on the bottom, but whiteish. Any advice?

While we're here... I culture Tetraselmis Chui, Isochrysis Galbana and Rhodomonas Salina. Anyone want to recommend a 4th strain? Thanks!

You’re culturing from plates or some sort of mother culture and keeping that running? Or how’s that part work

 

[lpramos]

Culture started with 32 oz Live Rhodomonas from Top Shelf Aquatics.

 

[Hawaiian AQ]

That’s not really intended for what you’re trying to do. They’re starting off sterile plates and then upscaling until they get to mass culture. At that point they’re bottling and distributing. Every time you scale up, you will get some contamination. As a general rule of thumb, once you step up, you should not try to step down. That’s general practice with microalgae culture. I’m aware many hobbyists are doing what you’re doing but I’m saying from a professional standard, that’s not how it’s done. Aside from that, a number of things could also be a factor. Rhodo is a more finicky algae that has a tendency to stall or lag but when it fires it comes up very fast. It likes cooler conditions than Tiso, 75-76 is a good temp to shoot for, doesn’t like swings and when you first innoculate, shade from light until culture becomes dense. I don’t know about boiling water as Ive never tried that myself. I like chlorination and then de-chlorinate with sodium thiosulfate.

Not sure how big your bags are and how much starter culture you’re putting in but cultures the rosy look you describe doesn’t mean dead. Have you let them run to see if they perk up? Like for Tiso when I innoculate, the water looks kind of hazy and opaque. Like watered down milk sort of but then after a day or so starts to turn golden and then gets richer and richer until it’s like chocolate brown