My go at Culturing Phytoplankton...

[Mr Cob]

I followed most of the instructions found on Melevsreef.com. Here's the link:

http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html

Here's what I did:

I purchased Live Phyto Plankton from Precision Aquaculture Technologies. $14.99

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/robart1208/img1227572122676.jpg

-Mixed two 2 Liter Coke Bottles to 1.019SG with RO/DI water.
-Added 1ml of Kent Marine Essential Elements to each 2 liter bottle.
-Added 5ml of Miracle Grow Liquid Houseplant food to each 2 liter bottle.
-Added less than a quarter bottle of the pre-purchased live phyto to each 2 liter bottle.

-Hooked each one up with clear airline tubing, a gang valve and air pump (no air stone used). Steady flow but not boiling water.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/robart1208/img1227571789034.jpg

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/robart1208/img1227571788527.jpg

-Added them to the stand of my main display under a light on a timer for 16hours of light and 8 hours of darkness.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/robart1208/img1227571792192.jpg

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/robart1208/img1227571791701.jpg

FIRST DAY: (Everything looks fine)

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/robart1208/img1227571740452.jpg

[Mr Cob]

SECOND DAY: (water is merky/cloudy geen, with junks of green stuff at the bottom of the bottles)

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/robart1208/img1227571740951.jpg


This image is terrible but you can see the chunks at the bottom:
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/robart1208/img1227571741672.jpg


So, any ideas what went wrong or is anything wrong? I shook both bottles when I got home and will leave things as they are until another day or two. I'm thinking this is what a "CRASH" looks like and everything is dead?

Maybe I need to use airstones or maybe I didn't add enough of the initial live phyto to get it going???

[Mr Cob]

Ok, I just shook both bottles up really well and increased the air bubbles in each.

We'll see if that does anything, though it may already be dead??? I just don't know what to look for just yet.

[Mr Cob]

This morning both bottles are still milky but there isn't anything settled at the bottom. I'm thinking this is partly a good sign.

[Texreefer]

stuff the top of the bottles with cotton make sure you are only agitating the water enough to keep it moving,, those cultures are probably gone.. If you are culturing to feed rotifers or for eventually breeding clowns, you will need at least 7 of those cultures going or you won't be able to keep up

[Richard]

I was only using 2 -3 drops of Miracle Grow for a 10 gallon tank so the 5ml might be way too much.

[Mr Cob]

I was only using 2 -3 drops of Miracle Grow for a 10 gallon tank so the 5ml might be way too much.

Ok, maybe I'll drop this to 1ml. Anyone else try Miracle Grow and if so, how much did you use per volume of water?


stuff the top of the bottles with cotton make sure you are only agitating the water enough to keep it moving,, those cultures are probably gone.. If you are culturing to feed rotifers or for eventually breeding clowns, you will need at least 7 of those cultures going or you won't be able to keep up

Ok, I figured they were gone, thanks for the affirmation, I didn't know what they heck to look for. Right now I'm just practicing. I do plan to rear clowns but don't want to try anything until I have a tank ready and I get all the basics down with culturing. Once I get this down I'll try rotifers then work on a system to support the fry. I learned a lot when following your Tex-Clowns thread.

Thanks for the tip of the cotton. What does this do?

[Texreefer]

you need the top open for good carbon dioxide exchange, the cotton is just to keep contaminants out of the bottle

[Mr Cob]

Ok, I trashed the two previous cultures and started a new one.

This time I only used 1ml of the liquid Miracle Grow instead of 5ml and 1ml of the Essential Elements. I also increased the amount of Live Phyto added to the 2 liter bottle in comparrison to my original two cultures. SG mixed to 1.019 and this time I used tap water instead of RO/DI.

I did not have any cotton...go figure so I drilled tiny holes on the cap to aide in good carbon dioxide exchange in addition to adding another air line tube but this time each tube is releasing less air.

We'll see what happens when I get home this evening. Last time both cultures crashed within 24hours.

[Joshua]

I had a big PVC station a long time ago with 8 2 liter bottles and fluorescent lighting running down the middle. I drilled tubing holes in the lids that fit tightly around the tubing and then just didn't screw the lids on all the way to let the extra air escape, seemed to work well. I have a bottle of algae food I believe I got from florida aqua farms if you want it, I doubt I'll ever do phyto again.

[Mr Cob]

I had a big PVC station a long time ago with 8 2 liter bottles and fluorescent lighting running down the middle. I drilled tubing holes in the lids that fit tightly around the tubing and then just didn't screw the lids on all the way to let the extra air escape, seemed to work well. I have a bottle of algae food I believe I got from florida aqua farms if you want it, I doubt I'll ever do phyto again.

Sweet, I'd appreciate it. Still need a scoop or two of live sand?

Maybe we can meet up this weekend.

[Joshua]

Yep, sure do need some sand still. I'll hit the garage and pull it out, got all my stuff put away still but need to go through it all anyway.

[Mr Cob]

Ok the 3rd culture crashed at the 72hour mark. I made it further this time.

Anyways...I'm all out of the original phyto culture so I'm going to wait before trying this again until I find a better way of doing this:lightbulb:...I can't keep spending $15 on live phyto.:thumbs_down:

Anyone know of any Phyto Culturing kits to purchase???

[Texreefer]

https://3kserver7.com/~frank/secure/agora.cgi?cart_id=
this is where I got my stuff

[Mr Cob]

https://3kserver7.com/~frank/secure/agora.cgi?cart_id=
this is where I got my stuff

Awesome! Thanks a bunch Mike, I appreciate the link, they have some cool culture kits and I love that the kits include rotifers and phyto. I'll see if the wife is up for buying me a kit :)

I'll keep everyone updated on the progress.

[SoLiD]

Hey Rob, here are some Phyto Culturing instructions I bought off of eBay a year ago. I thought to myself, what's $5. There you go Buddy.

-David

[Mr Cob]

Hey Rob, here are some Phyto Culturing instructions I bought off of eBay a year ago. I thought to myself, what's $5. There you go Buddy.

-David

Thanks David. That was cool of you. Have you used these instructions and did you note any problems that I should take note of?

I'm still leaning more towards purchasing a kit since I already went the route of following instructions from 2 different sources and found my experiment to be unsuccessful on 3 cultures.

[SoLiD]

Nah, I haven't cultured phyto.... yet. But I figured when I'm ready, I will have some general instructions. You and Anyone else are welcome to download and read the instructions. :wink_smile:

-David

[na1paj]

just curious... why culture phyto? for tank feeding or larvae raising?

[na1paj]

ok so I just saw your post about raising clown frys.
if this is the reason you need to raise phyto... I suggest that you don't waste your time and effort....
well, honestly, with the amount of rotifers you need to feed the fry, you won't be able to keep up w/ the phyto

raise phyto -> raise rotifers -> raise clowns

phyto crashes -> rotifers starve and crash -> clowns starve and die.

the three stages just doesn't make sense. cut it down to 2. raise rotifers with reed mariculture nannochloropsis. it's not live, but that's even better since the rotifers don't have to chase after their food. you can freeze it into ice cubes and use for years! and they don't crash :)

[Texreefer]

ok so I just saw your post about raising clown frys.
if this is the reason you need to raise phyto... I suggest that you don't waste your time and effort....
well, honestly, with the amount of rotifers you need to feed the fry, you won't be able to keep up w/ the phyto

raise phyto -> raise rotifers -> raise clowns

phyto crashes -> rotifers starve and crash -> clowns starve and die.

the three stages just doesn't make sense. cut it down to 2. raise rotifers with reed mariculture nannochloropsis. it's not live, but that's even better since the rotifers don't have to chase after their food. you can freeze it into ice cubes and use for years! and they don't crash :)

I agree 100% just more expensive and not as fun1:wink_smile:

[na1paj]

expensive true... but it would be less fun when phyto crashes (and we know they do for no reason ;) ) and babies starve to death and you have to end up running around looking for more phyto...

[Mr Cob]

ok so I just saw your post about raising clown frys.
if this is the reason you need to raise phyto... I suggest that you don't waste your time and effort....
well, honestly, with the amount of rotifers you need to feed the fry, you won't be able to keep up w/ the phyto

raise phyto -> raise rotifers -> raise clowns

phyto crashes -> rotifers starve and crash -> clowns starve and die.

the three stages just doesn't make sense. cut it down to 2. raise rotifers with reed mariculture nannochloropsis. it's not live, but that's even better since the rotifers don't have to chase after their food. you can freeze it into ice cubes and use for years! and they don't crash :)

Yes, it's for rotifers and eventually the clown fry. For now I'm just practicing and wieghing my options on everything before commiting to keeping the fry.

Thanks for the advice...never even knew I could go this route but I couldn't find any pricing on the product "reed mariculture nannochloropsis". I found the site and I ABSOLUTELY HATE when I find a product and all kinds of info but no price!

Anyone know what this product costs?

Thanks,

[Mr Cob]

Ok, so I found a link with a price:

http://www.reed-store.com/?category=46&subcategory=29&productid=NAN-QT

"Cough" "Cough" $70 for 1 bottle!!!

This might be worth it if the bottle lasts? How concentrated is it? Anyone know how long a 1 quart bottle will last feeding a couple of 5 gallon buckets of rotifers?

[na1paj]

a looooong time.
for 1 batch of clowns, I was raising a 5 bucket of very dense rotifers. I put in a small cube of frozen nanno two days. I keep the density at the point where they finish it within a day. the cube is not the normal ice tray cubes, it's the smaller one, may be about 1/2~1/4 of the regular big ice tray cubes.

I found this density work really well, but for just one batch of eggs, you need may be 1/2 of what I'm growing, may be even 1/4 (but it's a good idea to have 2 cultures going to make sure if one crashes you have a back up)

And with my set up, one bottle lasts me about 5 months.

it is very much worth it. you can ask any lfs that carry reed mariculture products to buy them at $70/bottle rather than paying for shipping.

[Mr Cob]

I have to say that this could make the whole process a lot more relaxing, because trying to culture the phyto has been a big problem for me.

Super duper glad they last a loooong time especially at that price.

I think I'm sold on this idea. THX for the advice and direction. Now I can start a thread on rotifers since the phyto problem is solved.

:)

[na1paj]

here's an article I wrote on rotifer culturing.
hope it helps:
http://www.dfwmas.org/NewsLetter/dfwmas_newsletter2008_10.pdf

[Richard]

I purchased Live Phyto Plankton from Precision Aquaculture Technologies. $14.99




What species is that?

Nannochloropsis is fine for keeping a rotifer culture going and should be pretty easy to culture. Some of the other species he sells (Isochrysis,Tetraselmis) are tougher to culture and not neccessary for keeping rotifers going. If it's a blend of different species then those cultures usually crash also.

Then you can just use an algae paste like Isochrysis to enrich the rotifers prior to feeding since nannochloropsis doesn't have a very good nutritional profile.

[Goofball310]

cob, any update on your attempts at culturing phyto?

[Mr Cob]

What species is that?

Nannochloropsis is fine for keeping a rotifer culture going and should be pretty easy to culture. Some of the other species he sells (Isochrysis,Tetraselmis) are tougher to culture and not neccessary for keeping rotifers going. If it's a blend of different species then those cultures usually crash also.

Then you can just use an algae paste like Isochrysis to enrich the rotifers prior to feeding since nannochloropsis doesn't have a very good nutritional profile.

It was his mixed version. Thx for the input...I didn't even think to look.


cob, any update on your attempts at culturing phyto?

Yes...see below...I will be skipping this process and going straight to feeding the rotifers reed mariculture nannochloropsis that Allen mentioned.


here's an article I wrote on rotifer culturing.
hope it helps:
http://www.dfwmas.org/NewsLetter/dfwmas_newsletter2008_10.pdf

Awesome. Thanks.

[reddrum]

1 ml of the reed nano paste should feed ~ 1 million rotifers for a day. Make sure it is good and mixed up in saltwater before adding it because it will settle out and make a funk at the bottom of your rotifer tank. It is also helpful to add a small amount of chloramx every once in a while to the culture because you will get ammonia build up depending on how intensive you plan to get.

[Mr Cob]

1 ml of the reed nano paste should feed ~ 1 million rotifers for a day. Make sure it is good and mixed up in saltwater before adding it because it will settle out and make a funk at the bottom of your rotifer tank. It is also helpful to add a small amount of chloramx every once in a while to the culture because you will get ammonia build up depending on how intensive you plan to get.

Great info. THX.

[moe]

Hey Cob,

Just wanted to know how the phyto is coming along? Have u made a good batch? Since last I PM u, I notice a differenc with mine's. One have almost a smoothy look to it. The control batch is slowly chaning colors, while clump move about with the air bubbles. I don't how much of a progress I made, nonetheless I just observe for now.

I would like it to be a sucess. But I fear that I don't have all the proper ingrediants to maintan the batch.

[moe]

I have pic for soon

[Mr Cob]

Hey Cob,

Just wanted to know how the phyto is coming along? Have u made a good batch? Since last I PM u, I notice a differenc with mine's. One have almost a smoothy look to it. The control batch is slowly chaning colors, while clump move about with the air bubbles. I don't how much of a progress I made, nonetheless I just observe for now.

I would like it to be a sucess. But I fear that I don't have all the proper ingrediants to maintan the batch.

Smoothy sounds like a contaminated batch to me. Also, clumps aren't good. What species did you use to start the culture?

I gave up on this and decided that I would just use the phytoplankton paste to feed the rotifers.

I sold my large reef and clowns and will be upgrading in the future so this experiment is kind of dead to me right now.

[moe]

I know how u feel. I started the same species as u did. Do u still have phyto paste?

[moe]

sorry it took so long, but here they are pls let me know what u think

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/moe_076/IMG_4914.jpg

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/moe_076/IMG_4915.jpg

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/moe_076/IMG_4916.jpg

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/moe_076/IMG_4917.jpg

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/moe_076/IMG_4918.jpg

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/moe_076/IMG_4919.jpg

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/moe_076/IMG_4921.jpg

The left tube is the control.

[reddrum]

If that is nanochloropsis it doesn't look good to me. Do you have airation going into the bottles? You shouldn't have any visible clumps in a healthy culture when you start to see clumps it is crashing.I don't know how you started your culture but in large production we bleach the seawater (with VERY little bleach) and then dechlorinate. Contamination will cause a culture to crash fast. Then wait a day, add algae + f/2 (nutrients). Within 4-5 days you should have a water column that is uniform in color and dark green. Keep us updated on the progress.

[Mr Cob]

Moe, those definitely crashed. I had the same problem. I like the "lab" though. Nice "Hobo Tubes".

[moe]

Moe, those definitely crashed. I had the same problem. I like the "lab" though. Nice "Hobo Tubes".

thank cob, I figure they had crash. do u stop ur culture? How did u know the tubes were from ace? lol My friend say it look like a setup for a bomb lol.

[moe]

If that is nanochloropsis it doesn't look good to me. Do you have airation going into the bottles? You shouldn't have any visible clumps in a healthy culture when you start to see clumps it is crashing.I don't know how you started your culture but in large production we bleach the seawater (with VERY little bleach) and then dechlorinate. Contamination will cause a culture to crash fast. Then wait a day, add algae + f/2 (nutrients). Within 4-5 days you should have a water column that is uniform in color and dark green. Keep us updated on the progress.

I have the good airation in the tube. I stop them cause I figure it wasn't going to what I read. In addition I don't have the algae paste to feed them. Any more advice before I give up.

[Mr Cob]

I have the good airation in the tube. I stop them cause I figure it wasn't going to what I read. In addition I don't have the algae paste to feed them. Any more advice before I give up.

The algae paste is to feed rotifers not phytoplankton. With the paste you can skip the phytoplankton step if your goal is to raise rotifers.

[Mr Cob]

thank cob, I figure they had crash. do u stop ur culture? How did u know the tubes were from ace? lol My friend say it look like a setup for a bomb lol.

Because I bought some too, and I know his work. I also recognize the little air control valves.

[reddrum]

Moe, did you add any nutrients to start the culture? If not you need too. This is what a lot of people use: http://www.fritzpet.com/algae-food/

Like Mr. Cob said if you plan on raising marine fish larvae I would go with the nano paste to feed rotifers because algae culture is unpredictable and unreliable most of the time.

[moe]

Moe, did you add any nutrients to start the culture? If not you need too. This is what a lot of people use: http://www.fritzpet.com/algae-food/

Like Mr. Cob said if you plan on raising marine fish larvae I would go with the nano paste to feed rotifers because algae culture is unpredictable and unreliable most of the time.

I didn't add any nutrients that are in the market to my culture. If you look at the tubes, the one on the right has some chemicals that I added to experiment with.

I notice it gave me more of thicker, green substance than the control tube. I done with experimenting and would like to culture phyto to feed my tank.

[reddrum]

Moe if you are serious about growing phyto then I would buy some f/2 (F over 2) nutrients. Algae need nutrients like iron in higher doses than you would find in a "normal tank" to grow in dense levels. Your set-up looks good but I think that is what you are missing.

[Jarob]

Really glad this thread has so much attention, this is such an important aspect when people try to raise fry that most do not know of! I def. will be using this information when I get my own place in May and try to do the very same. Thanks for the great info everyone!

[moe]

Really glad this thread has so much attention, this is such an important aspect when people try to raise fry that most do not know of! I def. will be using this information when I get my own place in May and try to do the very same. Thanks for the great info everyone!

make sure u kept us posted. Love to hear what you will be culturing and the progress.

[nubz]

i need to buy some phyto for my copepods, should i add it strait to the fuge'??

[Mr Cob]

i need to buy some phyto for my copepods, should i add it strait to the fuge'??

Yes. Turn your return pumps off for a couple of hours if you have powerheads in the main display to keep water circulating. Turning the fuge off will allow the phyto to sit and for the pods to feed for a bit.

[Europhyllia]

Love how professional some of these set ups look!
I am using a funnel thing from FAF. It works well for keeping stuff suspended.
(the yellow thing on the bottom is actually resin to seal the outtake, not residue)
Since I dose the phyto directly in the display tank I also prefer to use the FAF fertilizer/F2. Just makes me feel 'safer'.
I just started so can't tell how well it will work out in the long run but so far so good.
http://www.dominopads.com/phytofunnel.jpg

[nubz]

Yes. Turn your return pumps off for a couple of hours if you have powerheads in the main display to keep water circulating. Turning the fuge off will allow the phyto to sit and for the pods to feed for a bit.


great thanks