Cleaning rotifer/phyto water

[steve_london_uk]

Hi all.

So I currently culture phytoplankton and have recently been growing two 20l of rotifers to feed my maroon clown larvae. Trouble is, the water tends to go quite yellow from what I can only image is the consumption of the phyto.

Naturally I harvesting about a third every day and replace with new salt water, but I'm getting through a heck of a lot of RO water and reef salt!!!!

I was wondering if I could take the yellow water, treat it and then reuse it and wondered what your suggestions would be to do this. I am guessing carbon might take the yellow out of the water, I haven't detected any ammonia in the water, will check for nitrates and phosphates but imagine that will be 0 too as there is nothing to convert the ammonia.

Thoughts and ideas please?

 

[Ron Reefman]

bump

 

[steve_london_uk]

I tried putting some carbon in an old bucket of the yellow water... did nothing lol

 

[rmurken]

I tried putting some carbon in an old bucket of the yellow water... did nothing lol

I think carbon would still be the best bet to get the yellow out. Try running it in a reactor or a canister or a cheap HOB filter...or anything to circulate the water through it. Dollars to donuts it clears it up. Or £ to donuts.

You could also try Purigen if the carbon doesn’t work.

But seems unlikely the water couldn’t be maintained.

As for ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, not sure I follow the issue. Do you feed ammonia or something? Seems all but certain that you’d have nitrification going on either way.

 

[andrewkw]

Just leave the yellow water, but not for too long. Harvesting 1/3rd per day is good but you can just let the water back into the culture. Are you only using live phyto? I find live phyto means the water will yellow a little quicker, but RG complete will keep it more green / clear but have a little more bacterial bloom.

Despite culturing rotifers for about 5 months I'm still not on a set schedule. I have had my cultures semi crash but never completely. Typically I will try and wipe down the slime from the sides of the bucket maybe weekly, siphon out as much as I can from the bottom about 2 weeks in, then do a near full water change about monthly. This does require a bit of a soft reset since anything smaller than the screen I loose but after about 3 days of not harvesting the culture bounces back.

 

[rmurken]

I see my thinking was misplaced. Different situation, can’t just run a filter. My bad!

 

[fryman]

Bacterial contamination, probably.

Multiple ways to sanitize but I would bleach the water and then use a dechlorinator. How do you process your phyto feed water?

IME many who think they are culturing phyto have more of a bacteria/phyto soup that will eventually crash. Do you have a microscope?