Cycling with phyto
- Thread starter cathbad
- Start date
cathbad
Member
I was thinking of using live phytoplankton to assist in the processing of ammonia and nitrite. which in turn would be a supply of food for many of the fauna, thereby producing more nutrient for the plankton; all in the hope of staving off a potentially dramatic spike/swing in nutrients. As well as avoiding the potential demise of additonal fauna. Worth a try?
cathbad
Member
I read an article about this some time ago, I think it was written by Rob Toonen but I'm not possitive. In the article he only mentions this as an idea but no experiential proof of its benefits. I have been researching for over 2 years before actually setting this up and this was something I thought about trying. Thanks for your input!
broomer5
Active Member
I read up a little about this before replying. Some pretty good sites out there discuss this to some degree.
From what I gathered - I suppose it all depends on the species of live phytoplankton, how photosynthetic they are and their total numbers in the cycling tank.
If you dose too many - and they are alive and photosynthetic - they may consume much of the CO2 gas in solution and release O2 as well.
CO2 levels changing over a 24 hour light/dark scenerio could cause the pH to swing as it does in a mature tank.
pH swinging high can cause the ammonium ions to convert to the more toxic ammonia gas ion - and it may be more toxic to living things in the tank - including the critters hiding dorment in the live rock. Obviously it would depend whether or not this high pH occured, and how high.
The phytoplankton may use this ammonia and nitrite as food - but I'm not sure how they would affect the pH.
That's my only concern.
Otherwise it sounds like a cool experiment .... providing you are prepared for a good outcome or a poor one.
I think I would experiment on a smaller tank, and not my main display tank I was setting up.
From what I gathered - I suppose it all depends on the species of live phytoplankton, how photosynthetic they are and their total numbers in the cycling tank.
If you dose too many - and they are alive and photosynthetic - they may consume much of the CO2 gas in solution and release O2 as well.
CO2 levels changing over a 24 hour light/dark scenerio could cause the pH to swing as it does in a mature tank.
pH swinging high can cause the ammonium ions to convert to the more toxic ammonia gas ion - and it may be more toxic to living things in the tank - including the critters hiding dorment in the live rock. Obviously it would depend whether or not this high pH occured, and how high.
The phytoplankton may use this ammonia and nitrite as food - but I'm not sure how they would affect the pH.
That's my only concern.
Otherwise it sounds like a cool experiment .... providing you are prepared for a good outcome or a poor one.
I think I would experiment on a smaller tank, and not my main display tank I was setting up.
cathbad
Member
It would probably be a species of Nannochloropsis. I guess the deciding factor may be how much is enough to do the job and how much is too much to cause problems. I can start with less and make minute additions if warranted, all the while monitoring water parameters. Thanks for the insight.