Culturing Phyto

ok thanks alot! i read the page and i have a few questions

1) i have this Kent phytoplankton it contains nanochloropsis, tetraselmis, and isochrysis, it doesnt say to refrigerate and ive had the bottle for probably a year or more! if i poar some of this stuff in the bottle will it work or no??

2) HOW LONG WILL THIS STUFF (ONCE CULTURED) last in a reef tank?

3) i have a power compact light thats 18W and 6500k is this a good enough light??

4) i believe theres a dry form and a liquid form of miracle grow can i use either?? i think the dry one is cheaper so how much would i use??

5) how much flow can the micro stand out of an air pump?

6) what determines which micro takes over??
 
1) I'm not positive but I believe the Kent product you have is dead phytoplankton in which case it won't work unfortunately.

2) That's a complicated question. I'm currently feeding my 30 gallon tank a capful of DT's every other day (soon to be increased to daily). DT's is usually significantly more concentrated than what you would be growing yourself though. I've heard of people dosing a cup or more of homegrown phyto to their tanks daily. It all depends on how much you feed and how big your tank is. My intent is to continually culture phyto at a rate equal to or greater than the rate that I use it.

3) I think your light will be fine.

4) I've heard of people using both the dry and liquid miracle grow. Here's somebody using the dry I believe:

http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/phyto.shtml

They actually went to the ocean and collected water containing phyto. This is why they don't mention using something like DT's to start their culture.

Here's somebody using the liquid miracle grow:

http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html

5) As long as it's not producing a bunch of foam at the top of the container, I'm not sure it's possible to give it too much air.

6) I don't know. Maybe one grows more quickly and gobbles up the light and fertilizer before the other one has a chance to get started? I don't think allelopathy is as common in plant life as it is corals but maybe it comes into play?
 
ok thanks alot, i put a message on my local forum to see if anyone local had a culture of phyto going they could spare

whats a good price for a small starter culture of phyto>>?

i dont want to spend alot so ill see if i can get this little prodject going i only have 20 bux right now to use so well see how far that gets me:)!
 
I think the smallest bottles of DT's are about $7 here so I certainly wouldn't pay more than that. I would think most people would be willing to give you a small amount to start your own culture for free. It only takes a very small amount to get started. The hard part is finding somebody who is growing it but if you've got a local reef club, your odds are pretty decent.
 
wow only 7 bux i think its closer to 15 here! that would be sweet to get some for free but i dont know about the possibility of that!

say i have only 2 bottles, what would the best type of phyto to grow?? nutrition and ease wise!??!?
 
Are you sure it's $15 for the smallest bottle? There are at least 4 sizes if not more. I don't have the sizes handy, but the smallest size is only a few inches tall and an inch or two in diameter.

If you're only going to have two bottles, I'd do two bottles of nanno so that if one crashes you're still up and running. You can always add more bottles of different varieties later.
 
well i have been drawing up a plan to fit more than 5 bottles onto a shelf with all my aquarium equipment, today i got everythng i need except for the culture so i was wondering is there a cycle time before i can add the micro??? no im not positive on that price but im pretty sure
 
There's no cycling time involved here. In fact, you probably want to add the phyto relatively quickly after adding the fertilizer. The more time the fertilizer sits there without phyto, the better the odds of the culture being contaminated with something you didn't intend to grow.

Can't speak to the miracle grow...
 
For those of you who wish to separate the phyto and liquid media...... Other than the filter paper, many of these things can be DIY. This labware also can be found on ebay.
The vaccuum flask require , ummm, well a vacuum to speed up the filtering process. Gravity will work also but it would be very slow. I would also try to avoid using soda bottles. Best to have a flat bottom to avoid settling. Never use an airstone, it will slice open cells.
ANy easy way to tell if your culture is growing well is by measuring the pH when the lights are on and compapring it to when the lights are off. As you prolly already know, the pH when the lights are on should be much higher.
As far as measuring cell density goes, submerging a white disc to a known detpth can be used as a reference. Other ways involve cell counters with a microscope or taking the dry weights after filtering the liquid media out of a known volume of culture. Hope this helps.......

https://new.fishersci.com/wps/porta...E_SC&fromCat=yes&keepSessionSearchOutPut=true

https://new.fishersci.com/wps/porta...E_SC&fromCat=yes&keepSessionSearchOutPut=true

https://new.fishersci.com/wps/porta...E_SC&fromCat=yes&keepSessionSearchOutPut=true
 
Thanks for the links. That's a much cheaper price on the filter paper than the material I was looking at before.

What about centrifugation? Would that also be an option for separating phyto from the media? I'm thinking a centrifuge would be a fairly easy DIY project. It might also be possible to get lucky and pick one up on ebay for just slightly more money than the filter paper.
 
Sure you can centriguge them but their will be cell damage from the spinning. Some cells will die and get mushed. You could also put them in a conical tube and allow them to settle then pour off the upper layer of liquid. Putting a very small light at the botom of the cone would help attract swimming cells to settle to the bottom.
 
Sure you can centriguge them but their will be cell damage from the spinning
Click to expand...

Well, that depends on the centrifuge and on the algae. Nanochloropsis has a very tough cell wall and centrifuges rather well. You can also freeze Nano without rupturing the cell wall. Others require more gentle handling.

There used to be a really good thread covering all this stuff pinned in Anthony Calfo's forum, but I do not know what happened to it.

I also remember a guy here on RC that taped bottles of nano to the wheels of his car and centrifuged it on his drive to work. No joke!

Fred
 
I still haven't decided what method I'm going to attempt to separate the phyto. I'm trying to avoid spending a lot of money on stuf that I'll ONLY use for culturing phyto. I'll figure something out in coming weeks.

One stroke of luck came up yesterday. I talked to my father and he still has the microscope that he used in college. He's going to give it to me the next time I see him. I tried using a little toy microscope to look at the phyto and it was impossible.

Anyhow, I just harvested my first batch of phyto and put it in the fridge. I put a little plastic disk onto the bottom of a dowel and marked it out. The green culture that I started from DT's seems to be topping out at a visibility of about 1" or 2.5cm. The brown one was at about 2" or 5cm. Just to be sure I'm not harvesting to early, I'll probably let one of each bottle run a few days longer out of the next batch.

I've got a 5.5 gallon tank cycled now and some phyto in the fridge so I'm going to go ahead and start hatching some sea monkeys.
 
Try putting 10 socks(hanes, FTL, whatever:) ) in one another so that you have one super thick sock filter. Pour a sample through, let gravity do it's thing and the phyto should get caught in the fabric and the water coming out the other end should be relatively clear. One more suggestion would be to try and use cheese cloth. I doubt phyto is small enough to fit through it.
 
THe cheapest, easiest way would just put it in a conical tube or any tall/ thin column and let it settle, Decant the supernatant carefullly.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8553226#post8553226 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Malifluous
THe cheapest, easiest way would just put it in a conical tube or any tall/ thin column and let it settle, Decant the supernatant carefullly.
Click to expand...

At high densities I don't think that will work. Somebody try it out and see. :)
 
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