self-sustaining pod/phytoplankton culture?

[shiftline]

I'm convinced it is possible and have started a series of experiments to find out that magical combination!

So why would you want to do this? Well, Phytoplankton is the base food of the ocean.. it feeds your copepods.. which intern feeds your fish and coral.. Self-sustaining live food? yes, please!

Now ideally iI want to do this all in one reactor but will split it into two if need be.
My first question.. Can the culture be feed from tank water? If yes .. step one is golden.
If no.. then I will either have to pull form new saltwater or push it through a UV sterilizer first. (should do the trick)...

The next question.. Is there enough nutrients in tank water or will I need some f2 on a doser?

This will be a fun project! If you have done something similar i would love to hear your feedback.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V81zLiP00CA

 

[OzIA]

I wish you good luck on your experiment but I'm very doubtful that this will actually work, for several reasons.

First, I don't believe you can combine the phyto and the pods in the same container. One of the primary tenants for starting a culture is having a sterile system so that the phyto can grow without competition for the food and light source. This eliminates the possibility of using aquarium water as a food source because it will have a lot of other organisms that will consume or out-compete the phyto.

Phyto cultures grow in several phases. There is a lag phase at the beginning of the start of a new culture, where nothing really happens. Then there is a growth phase, a stationary phase and then a death or crash phase. This makes running a continuous phyto culture by itself (one where you split off some of the phyto daily during the growth or stationary phase) very difficult to maintain, long-term. The culture will eventually stop growing and crash even if you are adding sterile water and fertilizer with each split.

Heat may be an issue. Putting that much light and heat that close to the reactor will probably put you in the 90F range pretty quickly and most phyto doesn't do well at those temps.

If you are able to stabilize the culture for a few weeks, eventually the light will be diminished by a buildup of phyto or other type of algae on the jar.

There is a good resource put out by the guys at Florida Aqua Farms called, "Plankton Culture Manual." It is sort of a "bible" for culturing phyto and pods.

 

[sde1500]

I currently have two different phyto and two different pod cultures running. I use new sterilized salt water for the phyto. I would not recommend tank water, I couldn't even begin to figure out how long you'd need to run it through a UV to be sterile. All you'd need is one pod or rotifer or something to get in there and it would wipe out your phyto culture. Plenty of times people have had that happen by running cultures too close to one another.

You haven't said how you want to add the phyto to the tank, do you want to add a bunch all at once? Add it slowly over time? Either will work, one will make your tank rather cloudy. Added a gallon to my tank a couple weeks ago all at once. It was not a good idea, my tank was extremely cloudy and green for a week. Adding it slowly is better, but you will want to be able to store it in the mean time. So grow your culture, split it, store part, and refill the other part with new saltwater, dose f/2 and regrow. I split every week or two.

 

[shiftline]

I have a feeling i will need to add a UV steralizer.. If i use an aqualifter to feed it then it will move very slowly through it and even a small one should kill anything in the tankwater feeding the reactor..

As for both in one reacotor.. I agree its very questionable! My original plan was to use 2 separate ones but i wanted to try the all in one solution first!

I do culture pods/phyto in separate containers in my furance room and have done so for a few years now so i have that part down.. this is more my experimental project as i think it would be awesome to get this going and self-sustaining as much as possible.

Most phyto crashes are from not splitting it so.. doing tiny daily splits may do the trick.. I'm going to wait until it darkens before i start dosing.

Should be a fun experiment.

The first method of adding it is pushing water into the reactor and letting the phyto/pods spill out.. if that doesnt prove effective at getting the pods out i may "dump" some in via a bottom mounted solenoid.

 

[EMeyer]

I think another issue to consider is the long term effects of adding F/2 to your tank, which is what would end up happening here. Since those components include things like copper and I believe silica too, I'd worry about long term accumulation.

I dose homegrown phyto but always remove the F/2 first by allowing the algae to settle, removing supernatant, and rinsing the settled algae with tank water.

And +1 to the comments about needed a sterile water input for successful phyto cultures.

 

[OzIA]

I think another issue to consider is the long term effects of adding F/2 to your tank, which is what would end up happening here. Since those components include things like copper and I believe silica too, I'd worry about long term accumulation.

I dose homegrown phyto but always remove the F/2 first by allowing the algae to settle, removing supernatant, and rinsing the settled algae with tank water.

And +1 to the comments about needed a sterile water input for successful phyto cultures.

Good point. I hadn't considered what might be in the phyto fertilizer either. Also, if you are adding a few gallons of phyto or even pods at regular intervals, you may need to consider the increase in salinity that will occur over time if your water is coming from another source. Although, there are some phyto species that are fresh water.

Also, re-read my original post. Tenets, not tenants should have been the word I chose. Obviously, phyto is not paying rent.

 

[EMeyer]

For reference, here are ingredients for F/2
https://ncma.bigelow.org/media/wysiwyg/Algal_recipes/NCMA_algal_medium_f_2_1.pdf

(I think this board doesnt allow links or something, because I guess that would lead to Russian collusion or something. If so, you can reach the link by googling "F/2 recipe bigelow")

(cool -- for now the link appears to work)

Specifically, I worry about adding extra Si, Cu, and Zn.

 

[sde1500]

Another thought about self sustaining. What fish population do you plan for the tank? Many wouldn't get by on pods alone.