Pat Castille
New member
Chris,
I just read an extended thread on going skimmerless on a forum with Eric Boreman as moderator. During the discussion, mention was made of "a continuous culture phyto reactor to feed a zooplankton reactor". I have a 55 gallon refrugium with a DSB which I would like to enhance the copepod population by feeding phytoplankton. Because I work on offshore drilling rigs, my work schedule of 14 days on and 14 days off make it impractical to batch culture plankton as described by Hoff & Snell in their Plankton Culture Manual. The idea of using a 10 gallon aquarium with UV treated tank water with the input controlled by a float valve sounded similiar. It was my thought that the nutrients in my system water would sustain a phytoplankton culture. I realize my culture density would be weak but I am not doing high density fish aquaculture. I had thought to drip about 3 gallons per day into the refrugium. At this time my refrugium has some red gracilaria with a varied population of micro-inverts. I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on this process.
Regards,
Pat Castille
I just read an extended thread on going skimmerless on a forum with Eric Boreman as moderator. During the discussion, mention was made of "a continuous culture phyto reactor to feed a zooplankton reactor". I have a 55 gallon refrugium with a DSB which I would like to enhance the copepod population by feeding phytoplankton. Because I work on offshore drilling rigs, my work schedule of 14 days on and 14 days off make it impractical to batch culture plankton as described by Hoff & Snell in their Plankton Culture Manual. The idea of using a 10 gallon aquarium with UV treated tank water with the input controlled by a float valve sounded similiar. It was my thought that the nutrients in my system water would sustain a phytoplankton culture. I realize my culture density would be weak but I am not doing high density fish aquaculture. I had thought to drip about 3 gallons per day into the refrugium. At this time my refrugium has some red gracilaria with a varied population of micro-inverts. I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions on this process.
Regards,
Pat Castille