keeping my own cultures of rotifers and greenwater for my clown fry

[AliciaP]

How do I grow the green water? I have not had much success yet and I'm running out of the nannochropolis (sp?) that I bought. My clowns stopped spawning as my heater went bad and now I think it's too cold for them. I am feeding my tank the rotifers and don't want to use it all and be all out once I get them a heater, so I would like to start the nanno culture using materials I have around my house.

What I guess I'm looking for is maybe step by step to set up and run.

 

[mwilliams62]

Go with RG Complete you don't have to grow anything and it has all the stuff you need for the rotifers and buffers for the fry's tank.

 

[AliciaP]

I will look it up but I can't afford to keep buying something and the fry tank doesn't need any kind of buffers as far as I'm concerned. It's plumbed right into my main tank.

 

[Jaypilot]

I will look it up but I can't afford to keep buying something and the fry tank doesn't need any kind of buffers as far as I'm concerned. It's plumbed right into my main tank.

Thats a little problem right there. You do not want to tie your fry tank in with your display tank. First problem is you will have too many rots get sucked into the main tank and of course that does no good for your fry. The second issue is if you are able to make it work then you will have a HUGE bio load in your display tank. I have heard of people with over 300g in their display tank with large algae blooms from one 10g fry tank.

The roti grow complete is a vary good product will save you a lot of time. It also incorporates an ammonia binder to help detoxify the ammonia in your fry tank. Its a little pricy but that's kind of the price that everyone is willing to spend now because it takes one vary tough step out of raising clowns.

 

[AliciaP]

I made a few small acrylic 'tanks' and made a drip line that I can control the speed of. I keep it off and allow the little bellies to fill up and then turn it on for a couple hours and so on. The drip is shut off at night so they can feed all night. Worked well until I screwed with it and made a mistake. Never got a chance to make it to Meta BUT the fry lived past it's 3 day yolk sac. As for the algae blooms, I haven't seen it yet, but I am always watching for it, but since I only tried with one batch, it's really too soon to tell. And I don't think I'll be getting it since it's pricey. I'm not raising clowns to make money, so I can't really see putting a lot of money into something like that. But who knows, maybe I will fall in love with these tiny fry (as if I haven't already) and need to change my setup and try the RG Complete.

Thank you very much for the info!

 

[billsreef]

How are you currently set up and trying to grow the nano?

 

[AliciaP]

2 liter bottle in my sump area where the light is on. Rigid airline with several small holes made and the bottom plugged for dispersion of the air.

 

[billsreef]

Unplug that rigid airline and go for a nice rolling boil of aeration. Surface of the culture should look much like the surface of a pot of water your boiling for spaghetti What are using for fertilizer?

 

[AliciaP]

Fertilizer? :/ Nothing?

 

[billsreef]

Fertilizer? :/ Nothing?

Ahh, the phyto needs to be fed Guillards f/2 is the gold standard for fertilizing phyto cultures. The stuff from Florida Aqua Farms is excellent, and economical.

 

[AliciaP]

I thought it just needed light!

 

[GreshamH]

its a plant, plants need a wee bit more to live then just light alone

IN the ocean where they thrive, they have more then enough nutrients. In our tanks, we're deficient in what they need. The nutrients are NOT something you want to add to your aquarium water, which is one of the benefits of using a paste/commercial phyto product.