Phytoplankton crash

[elviraveloz]

I being culturing phytoplankton for about four months, then recently started culturing live brine shrimp for which I bought a plankton collector to collect brine shrimp, to avoid inserting the culture water in tank. I used the plankton collector five days ago to filtered phytoplankton culture . I cleaned the collector before but I think I contaminated the culture causing phyto culture to crash. Can I filtered the phyto culture that crashed again and start culture again?

 

[billsreef]

In general, trying to restart a phyto culture from crashed one just gets you a nice cyano culture. Occasionally you get luck and get it restarted, but I'd want microscopic confirmation that it's the phyto your trying to culture and not cyano.

 

[elviraveloz]

Thank you billsreef.

 

[elviraveloz]

Billsreef, I stated it before I noticed your comment, the process will be the same getting darker and darker but the only way to find out will be a microscopic confirmation. I asked because culture is getting a darker green everyday.

 

[billsreef]

Yeah, you need to look at a sample under a microscope (400x magnification is ideal) to be sure that green isn't cyano that took over after the crash.

 

[elviraveloz]

Since a microscope in not in my hands right now,and just going to discard this and start all over again. Thank you