Growing Phytoplankton

[HumanIMDB]

We are going to start feeding phytoplankton to our AGA92 to support the pods we are seeing everywhere in the tank.

We had been planning to buy a big bottle of regular phytoplankton and just feed it per the instructions. However, while researching the various feeding regiments out there, I came across Melev's <a href="http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html" target=_blank>article about growing your own phytoplankton</a>. Well, I am sold and will be doing this instead.

Here is the plan:
- Purchase a bottle of <a href="http://reefnutrition.com/phytofeast/indexpfl.htm" target=_blank>Reef Nutrition Phyto-Feast Live Premium Phytoplankton</a>
- Use half of the bottle to feed the tank
- Use the other half to start the culture
- Setup a pretzel container like the one in Melev's article per his instructions
- Harvest 3/4 of the crop and store and use the other 1/4 to start the next crop
- Repeat indefinitely

Is anyone else doing this? Any tips/tricks not covered in Melev's article?

 

[Playa-1]

Just tagging along. I'm thinking of taking this on soon myself

 

[jpitts101]

Alot of us do it and have great sucess from it and others swear there is no benifit from it. If i were you i would start with his first recipe. Melev is a very smart guy but in my opinion i dont want to put miracle grow in my tank. Again I want to stress that melev know's his stuff, i just dont agree with recipe 2.
Good luck!!

 

[returnofsid]

The problem you'll have with using a bottle of phyto as a culture is that there are several different species in most bottles. When you culture phyto, you need to culture each species in it's own container. Otherwise, the more dominant species will kill off the less dominant. I'd research into sources where you can buy individual species and go from there. Isochrysis is a great species to start with.

 

[HumanIMDB]

Good to know...so far I haven't found too many Canadian sources for phytoplankton.

 

[jpitts101]

I agree with the last post but its good to start with dt's or phytofeast just to get your feet wet. I started with dt's just for trial and error. now I culture specific strains, tetra, nanno and t. iso all in separate containers.

 

[BCreefmaker]

phytopalnkton is the best food ever, i have a ton of pods, and i dont doubt it is one of the reasons lettuce nudi's breed in my fuge frequently even know the only lettuce nudibranch i owned died years ago in my first 20 gallon...
i use a method taught to me by a local reefer who raises clowns and its one of the simplest methods of phyto production
1. fill and mark a 2 liter pop bottle(s) with a marker at 3/4 full of tap water, then add add enough salt to make the solution a proper salinity for making phyto (most recommend .018-.019, i use .024 just so i dont shock the phyto going into my tank.)
2. add 11 drops of bleach per bottle, mix and wait a at least a day but no longer then 2 months. this will steralize the new saltwater.
3. when ready too split and feed a fully grown culture add 11 or 12 drops of tap water dechlorinator to the sterilized 2L(s) you are going to use.
4. fill the bottle(s) almost to the top with your fully grown starter culture and feed the rest.
5. put the almost filled bottle(s) back into your culture area and connect air supply.

start with the nanochloropsis strain from FAF for best resuslts. IMO Iso's are not a good starter culture because they crash way more then nano's.

 

[HumanIMDB]

Interesting about the sterilization of the water...

Did you have any problems getting the live stuff over the border or do you know of a Canadian supplier?

 

[BCreefmaker]

I was worried about it the first time, went Fedex priority from Florida. But i didnt know the disks Florida Aqua Farms produce are very high quality agar agar coated phyto and will be fine if kept dark and not too hot or cold at first. i got my first set delivered in the winter and was all worried because the disks were very cold to the touch and had lots of condensation inside the petri dish and they said on the phone to me cold is much worse then heat for them, but they were fine. they also store well for over 6 months if kept in a cool and dark place just in case you crash your culture and need to restart.

 

[HumanIMDB]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12639755#post12639755 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BCreefmaker
I was worried about it the first time, went Fedex priority from Florida. But i didnt know the disks Florida Aqua Farms produce are very high quality agar agar coated phyto and will be fine if kept dark and not too hot or cold at first. i got my first set delivered in the winter and was all worried because the disks were very cold to the touch and had lots of condensation inside the petri dish and they said on the phone to me cold is much worse then heat for them, but they were fine. they also store well for over 6 months if kept in a cool and dark place just in case you crash your culture and need to restart.

So order a couple of disks just in case?

 

[BCreefmaker]

well if you wanna eventually get into the live food sector of reef tanks their starter kits are unbeatable in terms of knowledge of growing phytoplankton and breeding zooplankton plus all the start up equipment. the top one is what i got because i wanted rotifers too.
culture kits

 

[HumanIMDB]

Great! Thanks for the info...

We probably won't go that far until we get a dedicated "fish room" but I think we will definitely be doing the phytoplankton.

 

[HumanIMDB]

After buying a 15 fl oz bottle of DT's Live Phytoplankton for ~$20 this weekend, roughly 15 days worth, I was really gung ho to start growing my own.

However, the more I <a href="http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=135137" target=_blank>read</a> about the process, the more I realize that we don't have the space to do a proper setup.

I was just going to order the Algae Culture Kit from FAF then setup a pop bottle with a small desk lamp and a 6,500k Daylight CF bulb in the AGA92 stand, but the process described in most of the articles I've read seems to take considerably more space. Especially, if you get into breeding rotifers as well, which we definitely won't do until we get a dedicated fish room.

Do you think my setup would be sufficient to grow enough phytoplankton to feed my system; roughly 1 fl oz per day?

 

[rayjay]

FWIW, I purchased a concentrated bag of nano from ReefCrew (Toronto area) after failing with the discs from Florida Aqua Farms.
I boosted it so now I have 14 Instant ocean pails of it on the go.
8 are under 4 ft fluorescents but the other six are individuals placed wherever I could find room for a pail.
I use a GE spiral lamp (Walmart) about 42 watts that I think replaces a 150 w incandescent. I bought clamp on lights from Rona with large aluminum reflectors, screwed in the spiral and then clamped the light onto the pail.
It's best to have more than one culture as they tend to crash frequent until you get the hang of it all.
I started by using 2 litre pop bottles with the bottoms cut out and inverted. By using 3 of them, I always had enough to restart a crashed culture.

Oops, forgot to mention that I started with using Miracle Grow but I have since switched to the F/2 that I buy from FAF.

 

[mastou]

Does anyone know why phyto cultures turns yellow - is this what you call crashing?

I fear I may have diluted one of my cultures too much last time I spilt them since one is nice dark green and the other yellowish in color. I think this could be because the very diluted ran out of fertilizer...

Here is a pic of the cultures (from left it is phyto, phyto, rotifier, phyto + tank water):

As you can see the second from left is yellowish compared to the first from left...

Any ideas?

/Magnus

 

[jpitts101]

yes it does look like its a crashed culture but i would wait a day or two to throw it out. I've had cultures do that and make a comback. Are you using the same air suply for your phyto and your rotts??

 

[jtma508]

How much of your culures do you guys feed to your tanks (ml/gal) and how often? This looks like something that would be a good idea to get into.

 

[fishfl]

Alot of good info here. I feed my tank 30-40ml a day in my 40 gallon tank. I turn of my simmer for 2-3 hours when i feed. I love this suff. Very eazy to grow.

 

[Compguy]

I have been growing for a long time now, I have been using Melev's receipe number two with the Essential Elements and Miracle grow, and man it gets dark fast, I feed 20 mL to my 55G display which is probably about 60 to 70 total volume and 15 mL to my 40G frag tank, which is about 55 total. I have definitley noticed a huge increase in number and size of pods in my tank, not doubt about that. I started with discs from FAF and a splash from a bottle of DT's I was using. I ended up using some ro tubing for the end that goes in the bottle, if you heat it you can straighten it or bend it how you want and it will stiffen to that shape.

 

[mastou]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12839353#post12839353 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jpitts101
yes it does look like its a crashed culture but i would wait a day or two to throw it out. I've had cultures do that and make a comback. Are you using the same air suply for your phyto and your rotts??

No not right now (I plan to) I use a small extra pump for the rotifier flask (see pic below):

Maybe I should add a bit more plant fertilizer to the yellow culture?

/Magnus