Culturing your own Phytoplankton

[spawner]

Frank,

From what I gather, Anthony is trying to look at products along the lines as a hobbyist would, in this case the average Joe walking off the street. When I flip through mag.. once every few months or so, I try to do this as well, in an effort to determine if something is misleading and needs to be corrected. Many times I find things that I am uncomfortable with in ads from varies sources. A few of those times I have confronted the source of the ad and asked for explanations or corrections. Some times this is effective; some times not.

The point is that when an ad seems to be very complicated; uses fancy words, it begs the question whether itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s 100% straight and honest to the average person or if its spun around to be kind of correct but misleading. I am not saying in anyway that this has occurred but I am only saying that it feels that way sometimes when ads use very complicated words and processes to explain a simple product.

So what I think Anthony is proposing is to do a simple test to determine in a very simple way if something is alive. If you ask most anyone, esp. those who are not biologist what "alive" or "live" is they would first think of themselves or some other organism that is alive and compare that with the given product. That said alive should only mean that it can be grown. Complicating this process is that you have multiple species in a product that have different characters. So maybe some species are treated differently than others or have different shelf lives. Regardless of any of these factors the producer should be honest with the average Joe and come clean about how long something should last and what is in it. Now we can't expect someone to give 100% of the details of a product but what we should demand is that someone give us an idea if something is preserved or has additives in it. Kind of like "all natural" or "organic" something along those lines. Or contains additives synthetic or food grade; preservatives or flavoring.

 

[Anthony Calfo]

lucid, Frank Super thanks! And yes... you have hit the nail spot on the head, especially, on several points.

There is some irony here too for me as it relates to the points made/clarified since we are talking about analyzing (deconstructing myths/misbeliefs) products particularly for DIY culture folks [the origin of the thread] yet I have been pitching (hard early in the thread) the mantra that buying (certain) commercial products is the better route (nutritional value and overall quality including particle size and prey species) for most aquarists!

Heehee... I really don't think culturing phyto at home is the best bang for most folks buck (time invested or money spent to make what kind of end product?!?)

But either way... what many of us asking here really is -

a) are the given products we use "viable"

and more importantly

b) are they nutrititious and usable (taken by filter-feeders, etc)

Indeed... we should start simple/small and have a clear endpoint goal.

"Viability" is the first question to me. If I want to DIY grow phyto (again... the very name and origin of this thread!), then viability of a commercial product used as an innoculum (and/or boost/re-envigor) to live home cultures is obviosuly an issue. And, for reef keepers that want to use store-bought phyto... I personally believe that a majority will also need/want/favor fresh, viably active phyto rather than something that has been altered. Nutritional value aside (see below), there are some very legitimate reasons for wanting this... starting with the belief (true or not) that fresh (viable) live phyto is more likely to be taken by our targeted filter feders for its natural and appropriate particle/prey size (has not been clumped, clotted, fixed ot in any way denatured).

And really... where does the average aquarist go to get a "starter culture" of phyto? Even the savvy RC readers largely do not have access to pure lab cultures, but rather get innoc's from local store bought phyto, or local aquarists. Period.

As for nutritional value... great point (again most important here) but is simply beyond the means of home aquarists to quantify.

And since we all here are mostly simple aquarists (OK... Frank - you are not simple aquarist. Your a super-aquarist. Well... you may be simple, but just not a simple aquarist. Er... what I mean is... ah, nevermind )... Hmmm, sorry. I digress.

Since we are chatting up this "DIY phyto" thread from a DIY home based/consumer perspective... I think we can say that we are at least initially interested in the practical realities.

1) is the product "alive", which we will define as metabolically viable sufficient to start a DIY home culture

2) can home aquarists with reasonably sufficient hardware grow out reasonably good cultures of at least one species
* indeed more than one species is not likely or recommended for optimal phyto culture. Ridiculous really to even discuss more than one species per culture.

That is a good starting point as I see it. Comments?

Much appreciation again to Frank for his comments and offer to oversee.

mille grazie,

Anthony

 

[Anthony Calfo]

Thanks Andrew We were posting at the same time and you beat me to the punch!

 

[FMarini]

Anthony-
allow me to ever so lightly disagree w/ you on one above point (althou) maybe a few by the time I'm done.
Most hobbyists can grow phyto, its just more cost efficent for them not to and buy it- i will agree w/ you on that.
point 1- I believe many people have a easy way to assess nutritional profiles of their phyto culutres;. its called feeding. If you grow phyto and you feed it to an feeder organism (like rotifers, brine nauplii) and the rotifers can support clownfish fry development, then subjectively the phyto is nutritional sufficient to grow clownfish fry. Is it nutritional complete enough to fulfill the requirements of an EPA lab test? probably not, but it should be sufficent to provide growth support for developing clownfish fry (and most likely any filter feeding organisms), now is this phyto the same "quality" as what you buy from the vendors in question. Probably not.
I'm still not sold on the concept of culturing phytoplanknton from a store bought phyto concentrate as a defination of how good or viable the product is. I understand your and Andys statements, and I also understand that the average hobbyist (and yes Anthony I am simple) might want a starter culture, but every hobbyist has access to good starter cultures, florida aqua farms.
Besides this your asking a diffcult question of these phyto concentrate products, your hypothesis takes on the supposition that A) if the phyto product is not viable, then one cannot get a viable phyto to grow out of it, and B)if the phyto product is alive, then one can get a viable phyto to culture out of it. I purport that if statement A and B are true, then what happens if nothing grows out of statement B.
Anyway, I would support a few thing already mentioned here, one would be a quick microscopic examination. Easy to do ( i would add something like trypan blue or some viability dye to ensure intact cell membrane or and exclude an cellular debris fragments, and b) aquaculture- althou i won't hang my hat on this
Andy- in my opinion alive does not only mean that it can be grown. If i were to add 0.5% formalin or 250Cgy of Cesium radiation to anyones bone marrow stem cells, it would stop them from replicating. However for the next few months the cells would be metabolically chugging away making every factor, they normally produce, they would in all intents and purpose act like a normal untouched cells, yet, they wouldn't ever make a daughter cell. Are these cells still alive? are they stuill viable? could you take these cells and grow more from them- no.
Lets say that one of the agents used to ensure long term storage of phytos were to do something similar to the effects i describe for 250Cgy of radiation (in my above example). Would the phyto be any less viable? would you be able to culture any of these cells? if this were true would the innoculum required to establish a viable culture go from 1 cells to maybe 10 million? does that change your thinking about the products vigor?

i ask these questions because growing your own starter culture from a phyto product produced to survive storage for extended periods maybe be asking apples from an orange. From my own experience i can tell you that i used to be able to grow nanno direct from a small innoculum from one of the products in question only when it arrived fresh at the LFS, if the product sat for any more than 2-3 weeks, i couldn't grow anything from it.

 

[shanekennedy]

i ordered phyto-feast live direct from reed mariculture. received the bottle on oct 26th. if i recall the label correctly, it says best if used before feb 06. i started a culture haloween weekend, forget the exact day, but it was about a week and a half ago. i used a dishwasher-sterilized gallon jar filled w/ ~1 cup of ro/di water & the rest saltwater. added ~20 drops of photo-feast & some air & light. the jar seemed to tint a little green after a few days & then went mostly clear. it has since turned to a light-medium green color.

 

[FMarini]

shane-
interesting obeservation, however allow me to ask you to take hard look at whats in your culture vessel. it could be anything from cyanobacteria to who knows what, and maybe even phytoplankton.

 

[shanekennedy]

i'm no bio-lab tech, just some guy who turned some water green. i wouldn't know how to determine what's in the vessel.

 

[spawner]

Frank,

If somone wants to grow algae they should buy good starter cultures and not some off the shelf product. I'll never understand why people fill they need to buy a bottle of what ever to start a culture. Why not just buy a good clean starter culture, they are not easy to find but you can get them.

My questions pertain more to product advertising more to reality of growing something. I personally think itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s crazy to try to start a culture with an off the shelf phyto product. I just go crazy and Gresham can attest to that, when I see ads that are not 100% honest with what is written down. Now taking this into account, your example is an excellent one. I think of live; living; and alive in those terms, many organisms are alive but not really viable or reproductive due to one reason or another. But at the hobbyist level for product packaging and advertising purposes only, I would suggest that if you alter something to the point of preventing it from behaving as it normally would, then you need to say so. So your if you sold your marrow as "alive" so someone and they were not a bone marrow specialist but likes to use it, would it not be best to say that your have preserved the cells and state in plain English what you have done to them so an 6th grade student could understand it. That is my only point really, is that one should be as straight forward as possible.

I think that Reed has done a great job of explaining this very point in the past. To me, years ago is paste was quite clear, not really live and not really dead. Kind of non-viable as it is labeled and sold. So I know that is was going to start to decompose quickly when I was using it but it was still in a state that some organisms could ingest it. This information was very nice, clear and easy to understand. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve been using since 1998 or so. But to see a very similar product come on the market as live ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œaliveââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ I just question if that is 100% on the level with the average guy, that is my only point really. For algae if the cell will not reproduce then I would questions its ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œaliveââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ state, and suggest that maybe it should be call non-viable. I mean you can freeze nanno paste and it is still in the same state as it was before the freezer, not really live, not 100% dead. I just like plain English labeling. I am not saying its not a good product, could be great could be not so great. That is not the point.

As far as hobbyist being able to grow phytoplankton and have it turn out as good as a commercial product. I have to strongly disagree with that. While on the surface it might seem that way, the vast majority of people growing phytoplankton (I mean fish farms etc) donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t have a real clue how to really make it grow and make it 100% effective. That said lots of people can turn water green/brown even dark green/brown but a good understanding of the biochemical processes that take place is critical to get the best product. Now can a product that is 1 month old or so be as good as some home brew well yes and no; depends who is home brewing. Sure clownfish might or might not display the difference, but other more sensitive organisms will. Also you have to look at the Fatty acid profiles.

I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know if Matt Palmtagââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s study is published yet. But anyway from speaking to him about it and skimming over his Thesis, on thing is clear. You would never want to use University of Texas algae to enrich rotifers or Artemia with when you can buy some of Reedââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s paste or other products. I havenââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t read the study in great detail yet, but I think you will see several things; one is the nutrition of the algae when presented to the organism and the other is the density of algae. I am willing to bet when it comes to enriching that density is a key factor. Would I use paste now to enrich now, no, but that is because I have access to algae that most people only dream of. Would I grow algae to enrich Artemia and rotifers with if I was under normal hobbyist conditions, no, if you only had 5 minutes a day, using soda bottles and some homebrew. Sure I would grow algae for green/brown water, but not to enrich unless I had the time to grow good algae. Those are two very different things.

Another thing that is clear is that I am getting and maintaining, for over a year, A. tonsa densities of around 10-15/mL because the quality of algae, so the type of algae and who and how they grow it are the key points. So I get densities of calanoid copepods that no one has ever seen because I have access to great algae, would you see the difference with clownfish I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know.

 

[FMarini]

Andy- very salient points.
I understand your concern over the potental verbage & misleading advertisment claims. However this thread and Anthonys concerns have fallen on the premise of "grow your own stuff", but your angle towards the manufacturers accruacy is well taken.
I havent seen Matts article, I'll check it out
thanks
frank

 

[Anthony Calfo]

fabulously constructive dialogue! More valuable to date (and will very likely be) than the simple excercise proposed thus far.

Let's continue ride this discussion folks.

Especially interesting to me from the recent banter is the practical reminder that "you are what you eat" in so much that average aquarists can indeed essentially quantify the nutritive value of the phyto they are feeding to their rotifers by the success (or not) of the larval fish being reared. A good point at least for those breeding fishes. And here's an interesting thread touching on some of related points (feeding phyto, rotifers and larval fishes... plus toxicity concerns):

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=6037560#post6037560

A minor mention/comment though to Frank, et al - we may have different perspective here on aquarists' tendencies and options for procuring starter cultures. As a man of science (you live, love and work it) you are resourceful at finding places like Florida Aqua farms. But do consider that the majority of aquarists have no such perspective... heck, most cannot even find (or are willing to use) the dang search tool on any given site to help themselves to common questions/queries! heehee... running your own forum I'm guessing you'll agree with that

Florida Aqua Farms does not currently advertise much on any major hobby sites... in no mags (a bit in FAMA)... but overall they are not heard of. Yet they've been around for decades. Fish breeders know of them well and find out about such sources in the networked circles in which they run/chat.

But I still think the masses of hobbyists (casual reef keepers including most here on RC) are mostly dependant on what they see and hear among the limited circles of largely new(er) aquarists - our hobby having a very high turnover of aquarists as you know... short average lifespan.

This is a small matter in this thread. But it perhaps should remind us of the difference in perspectives between skilled aquarists (yep... like you Frank ) and typical aquarists (casual reef keepers not breeding fishes, etc.)

 

[shred5]

In my opinion it is not the average aquarist who is culturing phyto though.. Most of them will buy something like dt's or some other type of bottled phyto...

You have to pretty dedicated, have some time and knowledge of the process for culturing phyto... Also to culture phyto you need some sort of fertilizer (f/2) which is found at the same places that sell phyto cultures.. Plus it takes a little research...

Anthony you are right about the search but most will just start a new thread and ask how and where?

Dave

 

[Luis A M]

Wow,this thread is some. Across itÃ"šÃ‚´s very lengthy development,IÃ"šÃ‚´ve seen it rise to philosophical and metaphysical issues about the meaning of life and the complexities of organic chemistry,without omitting some considerations on commercial ethics.All this to endorse the simple question if home cultured phyto is better/worse than a commercial product.
To address this question in plain terms,when we buy a lettuce plant at the grocery,we care about if it is fresh and nutritious,not if it is live or not.And we could also discuss if home grown lettuce is better than supermarketÃ"šÃ‚´s greenery.
Off the shelf algae have proven to be a practical solution for many aquarium needs,be it cryopreserved,frozen or refrigerated.
But culturing phyto is easy and fun and I wouldnÃ"šÃ‚´t sustain that home grown are in any way inferior to commercial algae.I find it better in some applications,like the green water technique for larval rearing and pelagic copepods culturing.
As in any culturing,you need to start with good,sterile cultures from some reliable institute.That was expensive or difficult for the average would be culturist.Old agar plates werenÃ"šÃ‚´t too reliable either,I cultured Tetraselmis and Chlorella from their Nanochloropsis plates!.
A new company,Algagen,now offers good starter cultures of lots of algal species,including zooxanthellae,at reasonable prices.I ordered a TET culture and it was strong and healthy.They are even now offering calanoid pods,a very much needed live food for difficult species.
Not meaning to pull this long thread even longer

 

[Anthony Calfo]

quite true... we have exercised and excorsized in this thread

Mostly quite constructively too.

I have learned from the thoughtful posts made here.

 

[Fredfish]

Luis. You never saw my lettuce. I stick to the grocery store.

I find that faf is quite well known here at RC. Maybe its the forums I hang out in...

Thinking on it, it is quite amazing to me how easy it is to get hold of phytoplankton now. Store's don't ususally carry stuff that dosn't move, so there must be a lot of people feeding their tanks phyto. Thats quite a change from 5 years ago!

Fred

 

[Anthony Calfo]

Amusing... I just saw lettuce for sale at my grocery store - packaged and labelled as live!

Hydroponic source, of course, and packaged as a whole head with a small root mass in a depression with moisture/water.

Live and fresh is best, right?

 

[shred5]

Forget lettuce it has very little nutritionand is mostly water, we cant even feed it to tangs, buy spinach... :lol:

Dave

 

[Luis A M]

So we keep drifting away with this thread
For consumption, live and fresh is the same,but life is an obvious certification of freshness ThatÃ"šÃ‚´s why Chinese sea food stores sell their stuff live.
Some algae (TET,PAV,T-ISO,RHO) are motile,so you can tell if theyÃ"šÃ‚´re alive by watching them in the scope.NAN is not,but if you can culture them,you know itÃ"šÃ‚´s live.(like the lettuce plant Tony found).

There is something wrong about the idea that it is easier to raise rotifers on algal pastes than with live algae.It is not.Rots on live algae are cultured uneventfully for years without crashes.
What is true is that itÃ"šÃ‚´s easier to buy commercial algae than to culture them,but thatÃ"šÃ‚´s a different thing.And you can reach ultra high rot densities with pastes,but IMO this is something a hobbyist doesnÃ"šÃ‚´t need.
I mass produce rots with pastes but keep my stock cultures on live algae.

 

[sleizure]

Quick question.. I've been culturing for a bit over a year now - changing the 2litres on a not so frequent basis - using Marine Algae Grow... things are doing well - or so I think - I've never had a culture go bad - or so I think...

Whats the span of time that I can keep reculturing from that initial culture? Forever? How do I know it has gone sideways on me? My tank seems to be doing ok? The greenwater gets greener as the week goes on while culturing...

 

[Luis A M]

You need to keep stock cultures as a back-up if you want to keep your cultures running indefinitely.Your working cultures,bottles or larger,after some time get contaminated with ciliates,bacteria and even with other algae like Chlorella.

 

[spawner]

Unless you have a good microscope you generally don't know how your cultures are really doing (as far as contimiation) until its too late. You can always renew your cultures by getting clean starters every few months. Generally nanno will out grow most contamints. I was shocked how long Luis kept his Tet for, something like 5 years or more and still looked good. BTW, Erik said to let you know it's swimming now. Most people can't keep things that long, but Luis has special skills.