Culture your own Phytoplankton!

[gettaReef]

Very nice. Soon I will give this a try. I'd like to do it to feed/enrich baby brine that I feed my tank and my dwarf seahorses, to feed my main tank (filter feeders and macro algae), and would like to try to raise pods (copepods and amphipods) BUT mainly want to do it bc it looks cool, and will help give the illusion that I'm a mad scientist (or mad aquarist) !

 

[lebladp]

Haha, same exact reason besides the brine and seahorse. I have a amphipod culture going on and imma start copepods once i have the phyto going good!

 

[lebladp]

Hard to tell in pics, but this is a 3 day difference! So far so good!

 

[lebladp]

Sorry for not updating guys, but i got quite a bit of Nanno. now!

Those are 1 liter containers.

Starting a new strain tonight, T. Iso. as people call it.

So here they go, started just now.

 

[lemonyx]

If you ever get out of hand growing this stuff



My setup

 

[lebladp]

Dang lol, wyd with all that?

 

[Dave504]

Where did you get the Isochrysis from?

 

[lebladp]

Where did you get the Isochrysis from?

Seahorse Source i believe it's called.

 

[Al915]

I have a question....Do you top off what evaporates with ro water?

 

[Reefer-E]

I have a question....Do you top off what evaporates with ro water?

I'm guessing since the tops of the bottles are mostly sealed, there isn't much evaporation at all, if any.

 

[beaslbob]

I have a question....Do you top off what evaporates with ro water?

I fed the tank and replaced the culture water with nuked tank water. So I didn't worry about evaporation from the cultures.

my .02

 

[TangsRLife]

How’s the cukture doing now?

 

[TangsRLife]

Do you guys ever use a form of sterilization to the air going into the cultures so they don’t become contaminated?

 

[beaslbob]

Do you guys ever use a form of sterilization to the air going into the cultures so they don’t become contaminated?

no.

that said I did use two separate air supplies to keep the phyto and rotifers separated.

 

[FishKeeper01]

Awesome, thank you!

 

[Peekay]

Awesome write up! I just setup my phyto grow station. Looking forward to an endless supply of phyto!

 

[Peekay]

So, I was able to get a few rounds of phyto, but now my water doesn't stay green...it's mainly clear with green precipitate towards the bottom of my flasks. My aeration is good, lots of forceful bubbles. Is my phyto dead? I think I need to start over. I did leave my Guillards f/2 out at room temperature overnight once...did that kill it? I'm kind of at a loss.

 

[beaslbob]

f/2 is just nutrients so shouldn't die off.

FWIW all cultures will die off or crash but not just every day. more like every year or two.

From what I hear the most common problem is cross contamination especially with rotifer cultures. I would always microwave my replacement water to insure any bugs were killed off. But that could be because of the way I cultured.

What is did was have 3 w liter bottles each of phyto and rotifers. Each had it's own air supply with no tubing shared. I just added some rigid air line tubing to the bottom of the bottles and let the "boil" nicely. Plus the phyto and rotifers were separated by about a foot or so. Placed in front of a 4' two tube utility shop light.

for dosing the tank:

I would take 1/2 mason jar from the phyto and 1/2 from the rotifers.

Then using another mason jar collect a mason jar full of tank water.

Then add the phyto/rotifers to the tank.

Nuke both mason jars until the tank water is boiling. About 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.

let them cool

Using the empty mason jar take 1/2 mason jar of phyto and add it to the rotifer culture. good idea to nuke this jar again as it may have touched some rotifers.

add some florida aqua farms micro algea grow food to the nuked tank water. (it's a modified f/2)

Add that to the phyto culture.

rotate the cultures for the next dose.

Worked for about 4 years but occasionally a culture did crash. I would just start a new culture using 1/2 from the other bottles. Then replacing the original two with nuked tank water. and adding some micro algae grow to those as well. Usually all three greened up nicely in a few days.

So I guess the key was sanitation, keeping the cultures apart and most importantly having enough to back up crashes.

my .02

 

[Peekay]

Thanks for the info, yeah, I wasn't the best about keeping things completely sterile. The first two batches worked out great. Here's what I did:

1. sterilized two flasks with ro/di h20 and rubbing alcohol, thorough rinse
2. put about 150-200 ml of 'seed' phyto in each flask, and filled to 500 ml with salt water (Reef crystals at 1.024 sg)
3. had rigid tube all the way down, about 1/4" off the bottom, rapid 'boil'
4. have a grow light on from 5PM - 8AM in a closed cabinet
5. let it alone for a week
6. after a week, split the culture into new 'sterlized' flasks (ro/di h2o and rubbing alcohol), now I have 4 flasks going
7. filled the flasks to 500ml and repeated steps 3-5
8. I harvested some of the phyto into containers for storage in the fridge after the second week and kept only 4 flasks incubating at one time

I really wasn't concerned about sterility, aside from rinsing the flasks with ro/di h2o and alcohol.

Maybe I'll start again with a greater focus on keeping things sterile.

Thanks. for the advice.

 

[beaslbob]

sounds like you're already pretty sterile. In my case I had to keep the rotifers away from the phyto.

give it a second try and see how it works.

sometimes it just takes a few tries.