Mavrk
New member
Okay, so I am 2 weeks into culturing my own phytoplankton. I used the technique outlined at melevsreef.com/phytoplankton (the 2nd recipe... gotta love that site). Here is my experience so far:
I purchased a micro algae disk of Nanochloropsus from Florida Aqua Farms, Inc. Each disk makes 2 liters of phytoplankton (if using to culture your own). So I split it into two 1 L flasks. To do this, I left the water used to "activate" the phytoplankton in the culture disk and scrubbed up half of the green stuff into the water. This was added to one prepared flask. I thought I could just scrape up the rest and add it to the second prepared flask, but immediately realized there needs to be some water in there or it just sticks to the swab (good to note for others attempting this).
I did not sterilize the bottles, and am using tap water. A couple days into it, and one bottle looks light green, the other clear with green dust on the bottom (I mixed it up each day). A few days went by and the one flask was looking better, but the other still looked like it crashed. After a week, I gave up on the crashed flask.
With my one flask left, I hoped it would not meet the same fate. It was getting slightly darker each day, but it was not until the 10th or 11th day that it was a dark enough color that I knew I had a viable crop. By the 14th day (today), it had over 10 million cells per ml (according to the Microalgae Density Measurer I bought with my culture). So I split it in half and now have 2 flasks running again.
I still don't know why the one flask crashed. I think it may have been either something in the flask or an airflow issue. When the airline is split, that flask gets a slightly lower amount of bubbles.
I think starting from an already established culture would be less nerve racking. To this end, if anyone around the San Jose, California area needs some to get started with, let me know.
I purchased a micro algae disk of Nanochloropsus from Florida Aqua Farms, Inc. Each disk makes 2 liters of phytoplankton (if using to culture your own). So I split it into two 1 L flasks. To do this, I left the water used to "activate" the phytoplankton in the culture disk and scrubbed up half of the green stuff into the water. This was added to one prepared flask. I thought I could just scrape up the rest and add it to the second prepared flask, but immediately realized there needs to be some water in there or it just sticks to the swab (good to note for others attempting this).
I did not sterilize the bottles, and am using tap water. A couple days into it, and one bottle looks light green, the other clear with green dust on the bottom (I mixed it up each day). A few days went by and the one flask was looking better, but the other still looked like it crashed. After a week, I gave up on the crashed flask.
With my one flask left, I hoped it would not meet the same fate. It was getting slightly darker each day, but it was not until the 10th or 11th day that it was a dark enough color that I knew I had a viable crop. By the 14th day (today), it had over 10 million cells per ml (according to the Microalgae Density Measurer I bought with my culture). So I split it in half and now have 2 flasks running again.
I still don't know why the one flask crashed. I think it may have been either something in the flask or an airflow issue. When the airline is split, that flask gets a slightly lower amount of bubbles.
I think starting from an already established culture would be less nerve racking. To this end, if anyone around the San Jose, California area needs some to get started with, let me know.
