Weird phyto qestion.

[Young Frankenstein]

I started a phyto setup with 6 coke bottles and followed directions from RC and Melvs reef, 1.19 sg, 5mg general liquid miracle grow, 1 mg reef essentials from Kent, in each bottle, with aeration and used DTs to start the culture.. Well after 2 weeks now I see some light green phyto in the bottle and very slowly I think the phyto is growing. This is the weird situation, In another spray botthe I used some miracle grow with fresh tap water to spray my mangroves from time to time, in that bottle I see what I think is also phyto growing dark green, 100% better than the culture station. ??? Its a spray bottle with just liquid miracle grow and tap water. can anyone explain this ? By the way all the bottles are outdoors in my yard.

 

[ClamIAm]

Sure. The phytoplankton growing in your miracle grow bottle is probably not the same thing that is growing in your setup. It is not unreasonable that some sort of algae got into the bottle, and being miracle grow and tap water full of nutrients it found an easy life in there. If you have a microscope, check it out. Chances are whatever is in there probably wont be as high quality of food as the species you are growing intentionally.