Culturing Phytoplankton

V

vince-1961

Guest
I read several things on culturing your own phytoplankton and thought I'd give it a try since the stuff is very expensive to buy. Water at 1.019 salinity, standard 2 liter drink bottle, 5 ml liquid fertilizer, 1 ml from my bottle of Marine Trace elements. Poured in some DT's phytoplankton to make it a very light green. Add big bubbles of air to create water movement. 16 hours of 6,500 kelvin light per day. Shake gently to stir up accumulation on the bottom once per day, same as the directions say to do with a bottle of DT's Phytoplankton.
It is supposed to grow until the bottle turns dark green. Then split it. Put some in a new bottle of saltwater and fertiilizer to start the process all over again. Use remainder for feeding.
Anyone know how long it takes?
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calaxa

calaxa

Member
Supposed to be only a week. I just bought my bottle of DT as well, so will be in same boat as you. Keep us posted. Any reason why you went with SG 1.019? What was the trace for? And what fertilizer did you use?
 
gsellers

gsellers

Member
first off i do not recomend dt's for a starter culture....i would purchase a starter cluture from florida aqua farms....second lower the salinity to 1.010...makes it grow faster...third, lighting wil be 16 hours on 8 off with COMPLETE DARKNESS. fourth...i recomend using micro algae grow instead of miracle grow for fertilizer.
 
V

vince-1961

Guest
Well, I picked up a bottle of DTs for feeding my hard corals and frogspawn I just acquired. Saw the price tag warn't cheap, so thought I'd try growing it myself. I invested a whopping $0 in it as I had all the parts and ingredients already. 1.019 b/c that is what some article I read said to do. I just used some saltwater I had already made up from RO water, just diluted it down to 1.019 with more RO. Since then, I've seen an article that says to use tap water, b/c the plankton like phosphates and silicates.
So, GSellers, sounds like you might know what you're talking about. How long before the bottle should start to darken up? .... assuming what I've done will actually work, that is.....
 
gsellers

gsellers

Member
given you get all your variables correct...the 6th or 7th day you should look like mine below, but never had any luck with dt's...IMO you're waisting your time and should start off with a different culture media
day 3

day 6

and my 5 gallon culture
 
gsellers

gsellers

Member
Originally Posted by calaxa
http:///forum/post/2815902
Supposed to be only a week. I just bought my bottle of DT as well, so will be in same boat as you. Keep us posted. Any reason why you went with SG 1.019? What was the trace for? And what fertilizer did you use?
My recomendation would be 1.010, using selcon/zoecon, and micro algae grow for fertilizer.
Enriching the phyto will be beneficial to whatever consumes it. Its kinda like gutloading the phyto
 
gsellers

gsellers

Member
another quick pic of what my phyto looked like...notice the bottle all the way to the left the light barely penetrates it...i got my cultures up to 19 million cells per ml
 
calaxa

calaxa

Member
That's a nice setup. I'm still in exploratory mode on this one but sounds like you are quite the subject matter expert on this.
 
jwagne267

jwagne267

Member
GSellers, got some quick questions. 1 Do you shake up your bottles everyday? 2. What do you do with that much phytoplankton??? and finally 3. what kind of light are you using? Can I just use any light or do I need say a plant grow bulb because yours looks like a long fluorescent tube.
 
gsellers

gsellers

Member
i do not touch my bottles at all, i have a perfect flow so that nothing settles on the bottom...using miracle grow, you will have to shake....i on the other hand do not use miracle grow and i think it was the stupidest suggestion to use it....ok off track....i use micro algae grow.
what do i do with the phytoplankton? well i use it to feed rotifers which are a food to feed th baby clownfish i breed...
My light i picked up at a local home depot. It is a 36" dual t5 unit. I replaced one bulb with a coralife 10k. and left the other bulb stock which is a 6500k or something like that...
any flourescent bulb will work but i see the best results when 6500 and 10k are mixed. gives it a nice daylight spectrum...
hopefully i answered everything....please dont hesitate to ask if you need any more help
 
jwagne267

jwagne267

Member
Is the micro alga grow stuff the stuff some people call F/2. It come in like a part A bottle and part B bottle or it comes together? May give this a try because my 2 clowns are begginging to host together so I want to be prepared in case anythign were to happen haha. How do you transfer the eggs?? How long does it take once they are transfered? And just one last question how much did that light unit cost at home depot?
 
gsellers

gsellers

Member
YES IT IS THE F/2 GUILLIARDS FORMULA....YOU CAN GET IT AT FLORIDA AQUA FARMS. jUST ONE BOTTLE.
TRANSFERRING CLOWNFISH EGGS? IF SO GIVEN THE EGGS WERE LAID ON A TILE PULL THEM OUT...SOME DIP IN A FORMALIN SOLUTION, SOME DONT. PLACE IN A HATCHING TANK AND BUBBLE THE EGGS WITH A RIGID TUBE OR HOWEVER YOU CAN FIND A METHOD....BIG BUBBLES PASSING IN FRONT OF THE EGGS NOT THROUGH THEM. WAIT TO HATCH THEN HAVE FUN...THATS THE QUICK VERSION...YOU NEED TO DO THE REST OF THE RESEARCH :)
AND I THINK I PAID 26 BUCKS FOR THE FIXTURE AT HD
 
jwagne267

jwagne267

Member
Thanks for the quick run through, hopefully one day I will need to use the advice and I may have baby clowns of my own!
 
see money

see money

Member
i was woundering about culturing the algea stuff to feed the lil critters to simply enrich my display tank.
is this the only way to culture phytoplankton and how do you culture rotifers?
im trying to learn this process but theres a lot of big names thrown around for the same things which are confusing me. so the only thing you have to buy is the 'micro algae grow?' how much does that cost and how long does it last?
i was thinking of incorporating a phytoplankton culture and a rotifer culture into a refugium is this plausable? again im not breeding clowns (although that would be awsome) i just want to enrich my main tank.
 
calaxa

calaxa

Member
micro algae grow is the fertilizer (phytoplankton food) needed for the phyto to grow.
Rotifers need to feed off the phyto.
In theory, you could do this in your fuge, but as this feeds into your display, it will be hard to guage the population and the correct feeding regimen.
The way gsellers described is the best way for home culturing. Commercial culturing will be more elaborate obviously.
Gsellers....do you add selcon all the time or only right before you feed?
 
V

vince-1961

Guest
Okay, I bought the Florida Aqua Farms kit. This is the 2nd try. Photos show the bottle 2 days after I poured half of it in the DT and refilled it with water from the tank. I started with freshwater. It's a wee bit darker now than 2 days ago.
With this setup, do you think it'll ever get as dark green as the left bottle above?
(I had to set the bottle in the sump water to maintain constant temperature, as the temp in my basement fluctuates a lot.)
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Also, not to ask dumb questions, but ....
I'm not breeding babies, so the whole reason for the green water is to feed all my filter feeding corals, right?


 
V

vince-1961

Guest
BUMP! seems no-one answered that last question.
Is there any reason to grow phytoplankton and add it to the tank ?
(I'm not growing rotifers for feeding baby fish.)
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
The phyto will directly feed any filter feeders you have. But it also feeds the copepods/rotifers in your tank that feed corals and some fish.
 
V

vince-1961

Guest
My phytoproduction crashed a while back. There were sheets of greenish brown algae growing in the bottles, so I just gave up on it. Now that's it's summer, I was thinking of starting a bottle outside in the sunlight, but first wanted to ask the group whether it's even necessary.
Do phytoplankton reproduce in sufficient numbers by themselves or is it really necessary to add them?
 
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