Phyto invaded by sea monkeys

[Europhyllia]

My phyto culture is so thick it's tough to see through.
But tonight I noticed some large floaters in there.
So I turn off the bubbles and guess what: brine shrimp.
The last time I used the equipment I had raised brine for my new mandarins in AUGUST!
I thought I had cleaned the cone really well but I forgot to clean the rigid air tube.
Who would have thought stray brine eggs could survive this long?
The sea monkeys are dark green and growing rather fast living in this thick soup of phyto.
Now what do I do?
Drain it and start over?
Just turn off the bubbles and harvest phyto and zooplankton at the same time?

[Kristy]

Cool... amazing really! I have no idea in answer to your questions, but just find this amazing. Life wants to prevail.

[Mike]

I would think those particular brine shrimp would be some pretty healthy food to feed your fish... yum :)

[Third Coast Tropical]

If there were unhatched cysts anywhere near your algal culture or you're using the same equipment (sieves, cones, airstone, siphons, etc.), then they can contaminate the algae.....Those cysts are sneaky...could even come in on your clothes.....Best way is to have the cultures in different rooms/areas and use separate equipment....If this isn't possible....rinse your equipment really, really well...then cross your fingers.....

At UTMSI, we grew phyto and rotifers in one room, and artemia in another....We also used those clear plastic saucer-like contraptions (the ones you would stick under a plant to catch water) and set them on top of the cylinder/cone to keep contaminants from getting in....worked fairly well...

You can filter your culture through a sieve (depends on size of artemia~adults or nauplii?) that will catch the artemia and let the phyto pass through, simply returning the phyto back to the cone after filtering......OR you can just harvest both algae and artemia and feed.....Either way, just rinse everything really well. YOur corals or something will chow the artemia...I am doing it now with extra that I have after feeding my larvae....

[corruption]

Interesting -- wonder if both cultures would be sustainable together long-term, or if eventually the artemia would take over...

Either way, all that came to mind was an old bit from MTV's The State:

http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/408064/sea-monkeys.jhtml

"Swimmy here writes for Esquire!" :bigsmile:

-Justin

[Europhyllia]

:lauging:

I do have one of those lids, TCT. See below.
And I don't have anymore artemia. Not since August.
I am just really surprised they survived storage in the garage during the last days of this hot summer and then the first few freezes this winter.
The cysts/eggs I used were decapsulated EZ Eggs from BSD that needed to be refrigerated.
So either the EZ eggs are a lot hardier than thought or the brine shrimp I raised deposited some new eggs.
At least they don't multiply as rapidly as rotifers so it's probably okay to just have a few in there. They're pretty enriched as far as brine go ;)

[ErikH]

yeah so a build of how you are doing all of this would be great. My brine dont last more than a few days and I cannot figure out why.

[Europhyllia]

http://maast.org/forums/showthread.php?t=56724&highlight=phyto

just a cone, an air pump, nannochloropsis, fertilizer and water :)

[Mr Cob]

Very cool Karin. Pretty amazing they made it. Reminds me of aiptasia!

[justahobby]

They hate keystone :)


yeah so a build of how you are doing all of this would be great. My brine dont last more than a few days and I cannot figure out why.

[Europhyllia]

Erik, what's your salinity in your culture water?
Nannochloropsis likes fairly low salinity and apparently the artemia do really well at low salinity too.