culturing phytofeast

[aquariumclown]

I know plenty of people who culture DT phyto on their own, which is well documented. Has anyone ever tried to or successfully cultured phytofeast from Reef Nutrition? From what I can see it contains more species. I want to culture phyto, but wondered if I can culture a version like phytofeast. TIA

 

[Nanook]

[moved]

 

[billsreef]

Can you? Yes. However, like with DT's, any blend will soon become a single species culture based on whichever species dominates under your culture conditions. On the whole, your generally better off getting known single species starter cultures of your choice and knowing what species you are culturing. It's really not that expensive.

 

[seafarm]

Phyto-Feast Live will culture, but will always turn into Nanno after a few weeks because that species will out-compete the others.

 

[aquariumclown]

Thanks for your responses.

So what's the proper way to culture? How do they keep all species alive in phytofeast?

 

[aquariumclown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14915240#post14915240 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
Can you? Yes. However, like with DT's, any blend will soon become a single species culture based on whichever species dominates under your culture conditions. On the whole, your generally better off getting known single species starter cultures of your choice and knowing what species you are culturing. It's really not that expensive.

Do you suggest culturing multiple species all separately?

 

[DTagrin]

[violation]

 

[aquariumclown]

That's interesting. From their web site (http://reefnutrition.com/) there are 2 versions, one of them says live the other one doesn't.

 

[DTagrin]

[violation]

 

[Plankt0s]

Im getting really sick of seeing Dennis's post getting deleted. It really does seem as though he is getting picked on. Im sure what he was trying to say is that reef nutritions phytofeast live and the other are both just dead preserved phyto. Live phyto like the type sold by DT's is much much more nutritious. There has been a study conducted that tested DT's, reef nutrition, two little fishes, kent, and some others comparing the claims of "live" and the nutritional value of each and DT's is the only one that is selling an honest product.

http://somas.stonybrook.edu/~MADL/pubspdf/Emma-clamgrowth.pdf

http://www.dtplankton.com/mgw2/viabilityreport.pdf

 

[aquariumclown]

biowerks, thanks for your reply. I'll check out the articles, but I'm confused as to how reef nutrition can claim it's live if it's not, especially since they have 2 versions, one that says live and one that doesn't, but I'm sure I will find out soon enough.

 

[seafarm]

[violation]

 

[billsreef]

Biowerks,

Our [ua] also applies to sponsors. Having a vendor come into a thread to comment on a competitors product falls under the heading of commercial posting and therefore is violation of that [ua].

 

[DTagrin]

"Our User Agreement also applies to sponsors. Having a vendor come into a thread to comment on a competitors product falls under the heading of commercial posting and therefore is violation of that User Agreement."

This does not seem to apply when GreshamH, who is an employee of Reef Nutrition posts on a thread about DT's phytoplankton to "comment" in a most negative way about my product.
To be fair, you should apply the same rules.

Or, does this rule only apply to sponsors and not to companies who are not sponsors?

 

[billsreef]

Dennis,

You know you we can't read and don't read every thread. If you see something that is a violation, report it. You also might want to consider taking this to PM as opposed to airing dirty laundry in public.

 

[Plankt0s]

It seems to me that it would be best if the vendors were able to talk about their products and other comparable products. If it were not for someone on another forum pointing me to those studies then I would have never known about these things. If DTargin were allowed to inform people (at least of A PEER REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC STUDY) they would be more educated and more successful reef keepers.

This has gotten away from the point of this thread so we should bring it back. There are alot of places online where you can buy different species of phyto. You should do some research and find out which species will do the best for your application. After selecting your phyto begin culturing, each species in a different bottle. There are a few different fertilizers available for growing phyto and some people even use miracle grow. Provide light and aeration, soon you should notice that the bottles are getting darker. I have done cell counts to check density but you can just go by color. Getting the culture media out is one of the most important steps so you should do some research and find what will work best for you. I think one of the most effective that I have found is to put it in a centrifuge to separate the solids out. Just remember to not over do phyto feeding and dont make the mistake that many reefers do and start filling your tank with bunches of tubeworms and gorgonians, in my opinion even with regular feeding most of these animals require more then we can supply in an aquarium.

 

[DTagrin]

I am not airing dirty laundry. I have complained about these posts and have been ignored. The rules are being enforced in an equal way. I did not say anything in the second post that was deleted that violated any rule on Reef Central.

 

[billsreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14925601#post14925601 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by biowerks
It seems to me that it would be best if the vendors were able to talk about their products and other comparable products.

Any of our sponsors can do such in their own sponsor forums To allow such posting in the general discussion forums just turns into a huge mess of shilling, product promotion, and vendor wars. We've seen this happen in other forums, some to the point of total forum implosion. It's much better to not allow commercial posting

 

[billsreef]

Back to the original posters questions.

As I said before, yes you can start cultures from Phytofeast Live. I've done it myself just to verify that it is indeed a live product. However, with trying to culture mixed species you will in the long run just end up with one species taking over the culture. With a good microscope, knowledge of what the different species of phyto look like, a bunch of test tubes and sterile sea water media, you can do series of serial dilutions to separate out the different species. It will take a lot of time and effort. IMO when you can buy already isolated starter cultures from places like Florida Aqua Farms, Aquatic Ecosytems and others, I would (and do) buy the starter cultures. It's much easier and guaranteed to give you known results with no fuss

 

[therealfatman]

For what it is worth it seems on this particular RC forum usually the people with the better products are the ones with deleted replies. It only seems logical to believe the one with the lesser quality products whines loudly to the moderators when someone expresses opinion of their products. Usually those with good products do not have to snivel to maintain sells.

Seems anything on a general post should be up to question by anyone else who replies there. If a sponsor or commercial entity does not wish to be judged or have their products judged they should buy that right through being a sponsor and only talking about there products on that sponsors section.

Seems like a sponsors post should be the place where such editting should be taking place not the general forums. I would think that is what they are in large part paying for as a sponsor.