Day 1 to Day 7 "Greenwater"

[socalnative]

This is my first attempt at greenwater. I was just wondering from some of you that have been able to make it, what the color variation looks like from day to day. I think I might have some contamination already because when I placed the Phytoplankton I had a initial green tint for the first 24 hours an now at day 3 my bottles are becomming clear and a off white color liquid. Thanks in advance.

 

[socalnative]

anyone?

 

[broncofish]

We grow nanno sp. phyto and if you lose color in the first few days it is most likely contamination. Start with steril water, or a higher amount of phyto in your culture vessel. This may help with competition.

 

[olin]

agreed! Sounds like bacterial contamination. Once you have it, it's pretty hard to get rid of it. Sometimes a streptomycin/penicillin mix can knock it out. But for less than $20, you can just get a new clean culture and not worry about it. Just make sure everything that ever contacts the liquid (including of course the liquid) are sterile. I posted a few methods of water sterilization on my blog (which i seriously need to get back to sometime)

Water Protocol

 

[chris melb]

What methods are u using to sterilize your water?

For me i mircowave 2 litres of water at high temp for 10minutes, allow it to cool over night. then add the culture and f2 solution. This procedure has worked for me, i harvest 10 days later.

Problems i had at the begining
* Did not sterlize water ASW - big problem!!
* tried to start a culture with only 20ml in a 2 litre ( i have had better success with using a larger culture starter) i.e 200mls for 2 litres, u could ofcourse use 20ml to start a 200ml culture and then go to a larger culture of 2l.
* antoher problem i noticed was the amount of water movement in the cultures. Sometimes if you dont have enough bubbles in the water column the phyto can settle to the bottom and die, u can help by shaking the bottles daily by hand if u see the bottom of you cutlure containers have a green sediment.

If you have any other questions just let me know

Regards

 

[socalnative]

I am having a big problem with movement, but I picked up some small air stones this time. As for my water its R/O water out of our system into a brand new bucket. Ill give it another try, thanks for the input.

 

[olin]

Even using RO/DI water and clean buckets can lead to contamination. Proteus and Pseudomonas live happily in RO and has been found coming out of systems at up to 10,000 cells/ml! The microwave method is so easy and effective, I'd still use that to sterilize the water in the final culture vessel. Also, I'd just use straight airline for oxygenation/circulation. The finer bubbles from airstones can strip the algal cells from the medium.