Should I bother culturing this phyto

[ileolai]

Already tried contacting the vendor twice to no avail. this doesn't look like healthy nanno to me. should i even bother trying to culture with it?

 

[EnterName]

Already tried contacting the vendor twice to no avail. this doesn't look like healthy nanno to me. should i even bother trying to culture with it?

If it's Nannochlorpsis salina it can likely be recovered. I have done so many times and am very lazy with my cultures. You can learn about my very simple approach here if you are interested: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/another-phytoplankton-culture-tutorial.1165682/

 

[ileolai]

If it's Nannochlorpsis salina it can likely be recovered. I have done so many times and am very lazy with my cultures. You can learn about my very simple approach here if you are interested: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/another-phytoplankton-culture-tutorial.1165682/

thanks for the info. i double dosed it with f/2 and tried carbon dosing with glycerine, now it looks like this. still not as dark as i would like but its no longer that grody yellow colour either. what do you think?

 

[EnterName]

thanks for the info. i double dosed it with f/2 and tried carbon dosing with glycerine, now it looks like this. still not as dark as i would like but its no longer that grody yellow colour either. what do you think?

Looks quite good in my opinion. The density could be limited by the light source, temperature, or bacteria competing over nutrients. Bacterial contamination is something you can't do too much about and will have to live with, but it really doesn't look bad.

If you use this culture repeatedly it might get used to your specific salt mix, fertilizer, etc. so maybe it's just a matter of time until you get even more out of it.

I don't know if adding organic carbon is necessary or beneficial. F/2 already contains organic carbon. Additionally, algae is photosynthetic so it's capable of using inorganic carbon (carbonates) as well which are already part of the salt mix.