Need help with culturing rots and phyto

[steve1981]

Hi all. I saw my Maroon Clowns had spawn a few weeks ago and so I sprung into action to try and keep them going. The first batch didn't last longer than a few days with 50% missing after the first night in the tank and so I put a flowerpot in for the next lot which I then removed as soon as I saw the eggs on there. I placed them in a secondary tank in the garage with some tank water, air stone and a small pump.

I then began trying to set up a rotifer and Phyto station for when/if they hatch.

Rotifers.
So I built a rack to house 3x 3ltr bottles inverted with the tops cut off and used as lids. Airline run into each and a bottle of Rots from my LFS put in. The first couple of days I added more fresh saltwater that I filtered first with a coffee filter to increase the volume of water. After that I have been removing about a third and replacing again with filtered saltwater. Now currently I didn't have a heater in and the temp was sub 10. The green Phyto that I put in never seemed to clear and always stays green suggesting that they are not eating it. and/or growing/multiplying. I have since put a heater in and keeping it at 20 and again, the green doesn't seem to be clearing much.

Phyto.
I bought a smallish container, sterilised it using baby sterilising liquid and let to air dry. I filled about 400ml of phyto from LFS and 40ml of new RO water and a few drops of Miracle Grow (didn't have any F2 at the rime and wanted to experiment).

I wired in a standard bayonet cap 6500k bulb and placed it in front of it and put an airline in. No heater. After about a week the culture was exactly the same green as started.

My F2 arrived and so I put a little bit of that in as per the dose guide. Nothing for the next week or so. Same colour.

I then bought a slightly higher powered 6500k LED flood light and fitted that, within a few days the whole culture is now just a cloudy white colour.

Can anyone please point out some obvious errors in what I am doing with this. There is likely numerous things but any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks,
Steve

 

[steve1981]

Great I'll try that thanks.

 

[kizanne]

Not sure who you were responding too. I hope it was a private message and someone helped you.

I don't know what to tell you about your culture. One you have rots they can be easy to keep
I do know for me when I don't strain my rots out the exponental growth catches up and they clear the water though it is cloudy but no longer green very quickly. Then they can crash.

I am not that great at growing rots because the fish I want to breed generally like copepods and bbs. I do try to keep some around though but I'm not trying to build volume.

First I'd keep some green water seperate from you culture or you'll find your self with contaminated green water.

Second rots have exponential growth so they start of slow but since the can drop eggs every 6 hours or so they get big fast and can wipe out.

All the rigorous breed articles I've read would indicate you need to strain out 1/3 to 1/2 of your rots each day.

I now ammonia can build quick with them as well.

me I keep a few put them in green water it always look like nothing is happening and then all of a sudden the water is clear and there is a lot of little rots in there. then next thing i know my green water is clear and there is rots in the green water then my green water tank and so forth. they all crash and it looks like all is lost. But if you add the dregs of the crashed bottle to green water takes a week or so and there they are again clearing green water faster than you can spit.

I prefer fresh greenwater but that can be hard to keep up in volume for any large amounts of rots. Most people use a dead concentrate. Easier to keep on hand but is more susceptible to ciliate infiltration.

A few times like this week having a few rots has helped when my bbs don't seem to want to hatch.

 

[fnicklaus]

Have enough phytoplankton to have extras. Algae cultures can and do crash. I decided to switch to a condensed refrigerated product. It's very extensive, but I no longer worry about crashes. Roofers multiply rapidly, but don't give them fresh saltwater. Use water from large system The pH needs to be lower.