Continous Phyto Feeding?

[skydancer]

I'm sorry rustybucket145, I told you wrong. Instead of adding the salinity variance each day I subtracted it thinking you're adding (phyto + water) instead of (phyto + saltwater). So the only difference is...
the salinity will go up by 0.0001 instead of down by 0.0001 in specific gravity.

And the end result will be:
After 30 days of adding phyto+saltwater the salinity will change from 1.025 to 1.0251.
In 60 days it will go from 1.0251 to 1.0252 and on and on.
In 10 months... if nothing else changes will become 1.026.
Sorry for the initial confusion.

 

[rustybucket145]

skydancer: Thanks!!! That really cleared up some issues for me. I can handle the salinity going up .001 each month as that will be easily corrected with water changes. I think I am going to try it! I got the pump yesterday. So this weekend I am going to gather all the supplies I need and go ahead and start a phyto culture in a 5gal water jug. I hope to run some test trials next week and (if everything works) I will tie it all into my system next weekend.

I have taken into consideration that every other week or so I will need to change the 5gal water jug to avoid contamination. I will place a 'bubble wall' air strip in the bottom of the jug for aeration.

My hopes are that this 'continuous' phyto culture will cut out the need to split the phyto culture every 7 days. In essence over the period of a week the culture will be splitting itself. This will also help when I am out of town and someone else is feeding my tank (all they will have to feed is frozen cubes). I also plan on experimenting with a gravity fed IV line from the phyto to the sump. This would cut out the need for a float switch and pump. But.... My main concern is the eventual clogging of the IV line by the phyto. If anyone has any 'tricks' to get around this matter I would really like to hear them.

Everyone wish me luck. I'm sure something will end up going wrong and I will end up dumping 5gal of phyto into my tank. :hmm4:

 

[AggieBrandon]

You could use a dosing pump to pull the phyto from the culture chamber which would then pull the fresh saltwater in the culture chamber. You would probably want to install a check valve in line between the culture chamber and the dosing pump to try and eliminate any contamination from the tank in case the pump fails or any back siphon occurs. You will also want to try to shake up your culture from time to time to keep all the cells in suspension. Restarting it from time to time is also a good idea.

B

 

[rustybucket145]

Yeah, for the shaking up part I have a coule of powerheads laying around and I was thinking of just putting one of them in the culture and putting it on a timer to come on a couple of times a day for 10min +/-. I could aim the flow directly over the bottom of the container to re-suspend any particles.

As for the dosing pump you are talking about.... I have never used one but the concept sounds exactly like what I need. So you were saying that it will pump the phyto to my sump and pump saltwater (clean/uncultured), from another contianer into the culture?

The check valve is a great idea and I will definately add that in.

On the dosing pump again. If my phyto culture is located in a 'higher' position than my sump will the pump create a siphon and suck all the phyto into my sump? I ask that b/c the location I was going to try is higher than my sump. Last night I realized that and found another location (lower than the sump) as a back-up location. I would prefer to have it in the higher location but I am unsure about this siphon issue.

 

[AggieBrandon]

The dosing pump shouldn't cause a siphon because it uses "wheels" that squeeze the tubing creating the suction to suck water from the culture container which in turn would cause water to be sucked out of the sterile water reservoir. You could also put the dosing pump higher than the culture container to prevent the siphon that way. Most dosing pumps can lift fluids from 6 feet or more below.

B

 

[skydancer]

Here are the dosing pumps I use. I have installed 2 AC and 1 DC.

http://www.automatedaquariums.com/dp_101.htm

They work great and the price is right.

 

[rustybucket145]

Those pumps do look good but..... I was planning on having a submersible pump..... I will have to re-arrange some stuff to make sure the pump will be in a 'dry' area.

I see that the pumps are different by ml/h. So I'm guessing that they aren't adjustable? So I'm thinking I will get a 'higher' flow rate and put it on a timer so it only doses the amount I want. Eventually I would like to have it running 24/7 but that would be too much phyto right now.

Thanks for the link to the pumps. That would really make the entire setup easier and use less equipment. I'm definately getting one.

 

[skydancer]

You're right on the AC pumps; they are NOT adjustable rate but depending on the time ON they can disperse the amount you want.

On the other hand, the DC ones are rate adjustable depending on the input voltage. You can get a dc wall mount transformer from 5V to 12V. If you o that route, I would try to get as much "resolution" as possible on the time, so your dosing will be more accurate as the timers are not very accurate.

 

[Bill Wann]

I too am going to take a stab at the semi coninuious method .
Ive got access to alot of Biotech equiptment so it was easy get some good stuff , hopefully these will help . Both reactors have agitation and temp control , Iam using .45 micron filters to filter the sparge air .
I belive phyoplankton will be pretty easy to grow but we will see .
Iam using three pumps for this system , one to pump water from th e tank and uv to the reactor , one to add the nutriants and one to remove the phyto . all of the reactors I have seen have not addressed temp control or sterilizing the sparge air , I belive you will gat a better culture with less crashing if you do this , all of this is standard in the biotech world .

 

[AggieBrandon]

That looks like a great setup....keep us posted on how it goes. Hopefully the UV does a good job of sterilizing the water so your culture will last a while. If not it looks like you have all the equipment you need to set up a sterile water chamber seperate from your tank.

B

 

[Dwayne]

Kewl toys.

 

[Dewey115]

Could always consider ozone in a seperate area to sterilize the water. Could keep it seperate from the main tank if you didn't like the idea of ozone. It may work better for killing some of the bigger stuff that could possibly make it through the UV. I guess if you wanted to be really sure you could use both


Rick

 

[Avast Marine]

I am currently researching a system similar to the ones that have been discussed here and have picked up many ideas, and learned much from reading this thread.

My initial thoughts:
A nice looking stand, that sits in the window. On top of this would be the "reactor". This would have a spigot. There would be a float switch in the reactor. When I pull some food out to feed the tank, a pump (aqualifter) would come on and refill the reactor with a mixture of fresh mixed salt water with essential elements and fertilizer. This action would hopefully be enough to "stir" the reactor, as well as feed the culture. The fresh water could be store under the stand behind cabinet doors, and would only require monthly maintinence.

I guess my main problem with the current system that everyone seems to use is the splitting and storing of cultures. I would like to use the constant culture if you will. Basically only feed enough for the plankton to use in a two day period, then removing a set amout of culture to feed to the tank, then topping of with the same amount of fresh water.
So I guess it is a split still, but on a differant scale requireing much less work, and leading to a constant food source that is always at its peak (read no excess fertilizer).
I would no doubt be using a airpump to bubble the culture, but would also like input as to weather you feel the top off would actually stir anything at all.

Has anybody had success with this yet? If you have, sharing some of that would be very helpful for me :rollface: . If not I would like to try to pick the discussion back up and work through any issues before I start this project.

 

[Avast Marine]

Let me add onto this a little. I really am not interested in recycling tankwater and getting into UV use. I am curious to see the bacterial levels of F/2 fertilized saltwater over the course of a month, but unfortunatly have no way to accuratly measure the results. Are there things that could be done to keep this liquid from being suseptable to contamination? May be with a acidic solution? What is the threshold on the low end that phyto can successfully grow in? If co2 is a common part of the equation then it seems to reason that it may be low enough to prevent some contamination. Not saying that we could culture at 6.0 or anything but, if the number were around 7.0 then keeping the top off at 6.0 with distilled vinegar might be a reality.
If even there was a partial solution of top off made ahead of time (saltwater) and a small dose of fertilizer was added at the same time manually, I could probably live with that. Is there a accurate way to determine the amount of F/2 that has been unused in the solution?

 

[khrios]

After looking at the aquamedic manual for their phyto reactor, they say to use a 5 micron filter for the tank water that will be pumped into the reactor to maintain the water level. I posted a thread last week about this. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...id=874894&highlight=diy+phytoplankton+reactor
I basically followed the directions given by aquamedic, and am going to built my own reactor with their instructions for operation.

 

[Avast Marine]

I have to say I think using tankwater is not a good idea, no matter what size micron sock is used. UV may be a better option if you go that route, but I think the a cleanwater supply is extremely important to prevent a crash.

Good luck and be sure to post your results and progress on that thread in the DIY forum. I am subscribed to that thread as well .