Phytoplankton Info please!!.....ANYTHING!!!

[Feelers]

Well, the topic of phytoplankton seems really hard to find about. I am interested in breeding rotifers ect , and I want to diy my own setup.

However - does anyone know about this process?? I specificially want some diy plans, and a well presented overview. Many of the things I have seen are from faqs, and many others arent really useful from a designing point of view. Why is there so much info on dsbs and hardly anything on this!!!

I find pics like this - but with no info

I did manage to find one good one (below) but I'm looking for lots of sources to get some ideas.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-07/ds/index.htm

So.....does anyone know of any good links?

Thanks guys :bum:

 

[colettem]

There are quite a few stickies on the top of the fish breeding forum with links to fairly good sites. Also Joyce Wilkerson's book "Clown fishes" is very good at explicitly explaining how to culture phytoplankton and rotifers.

 

[PsychoKnight]

Those 2 liter bottles would drive me nuts. Don't have the time and energy to do all that.

I do the 1 gal bucket reactor.

I take a small tiny sliver of culture of nanno from a plastic petri, drop it in a drinking glass w/ a 1/2 oz of water & a few drops of fert, then keep doubling the water & fert every couple of days until I get a about a quart of it in my gal bucket, w/ a tiny powerhead and low energy flourescent screw-in. Takes about 2 weeks to get to this point, but it doubles every two days or so, allowing me to control culture growth from a cup a day to a half gal per day. It usually gets so dense that regardless of how bright a light I shine, I can't read see the ruler tip past 3 or 4 inches.

I used to use a partitioned 26 gal and could output up to 2 gal/day of very dense phyto, but it was way overkill, so did the bucket thing instead. I spend about 3-4 minutes every two days to remove and replace medium and add fert. After 5-7 mo. it crashes, but as it starts to blowout, I start up another culture and its ready to go by the time the crash is complete, so no biggie.

 

[kbecker]

how do you strain the phyto from the fert? if you dont strain, how do you export all that stuff in the fert so it doesn't accumulate to lethal levels (in time)?

 

[RyanJ]

get on to www.utahreefs.com, registar, and you can post in the general topics. there are tons of people there who do their own phyto and rotifers. People won't let you down. They will reply and post pics.

 

[PsychoKnight]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6845088#post6845088 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kbecker
how do you strain the phyto from the fert? if you dont strain, how do you export all that stuff in the fert so it doesn't accumulate to lethal levels (in time)?

Most of the fert is consumed by the phyto - ammo testing gives an indication of the dropoff point.

After dilution into the system, a consistent amount is exported through water change.

I like to think residual amounts are consumed by bio processes w/in the tank (there's algae in every tank, they generally use much of the same stuff phyto needs).

How do you know you have too much fert going into the tank? Algae bloom. So, if its done right, should be just enough to keep the sea hare and snail army happy, but not overwhelmed.

No sci experiments or high res mineral/chem testing avail, just my theory and what works for me, so far at least. I guess I could strain & rinse the medium through coffee filters and such, but not willing to spend the effort.

 

[smleee]

http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html

The authoritaaahhh.

eee