Plankton Reactors in Cold Water Reef

[mr. bojangsjang]

Since a cold water reef has lots of filter feeding inverts I thought a plankton reactor would be a great investment. I am looking the AquaMedic Plankton Light Reactor for cultivating the algae and the AquaMedic Plankton Reactor for culturing the rotifers. Now for the questions:

1.) Is the only difference between the light reactor and the plankton reactor the actual light fixture? Could I buy the plankton reactor and add my own light fixture to it to become the algae cultivater? The price difference is over $100 between the 2 units and the only difference I see is an added light fixture.

2.) Will rotifers be an ideal food for the filter feeding inverts? This seems like a dumb questions but will the filter feeders also eat the microalgae or just the rotifers?

3.) How long will the tropical rotifers survive once in the cold water reef? Should I seed the reactor with rotifers from cold waters?

4.) What zooplankton eats rotifers? I was thinking if I added a third unit, I could bleed half the rotifers into the tank and the other half into a third unit as a food for a larger zooplankton. Would copepods or amphipods feed off rotifers?

Thanks for Reading!

 

[jrandreassen]

There are a couple of good threads on this subject.
If you do a search you should find it.
I also read a bit about it in a book on raising ClownsFishes.
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=BKCF

Can't help with specifics though.
JR