Culturing Phytoplankton Without F2 Fertilizer

[Chrisv.]

I wish there were a way for you to edit the completely false statement in the original post (that Guillards F2 Fertilizer is an American product). As others have said, it's a formula. People can make it anywhere. you can make it.

When you make broad declarations like that people may think that you know what you are talking about. This is how misinformation spreads on forums.

 

[reefsaver]

I wish there were a way for you to edit the completely false statement in the original post (that Guillards F2 Fertilizer is an American product). As others have said, it's a formula. People can make it anywhere. you can make it.

When you make broad declarations like that people may think that you know what you are talking about. This is how misinformation spreads on forums.

I would edit it for you if there was an option.
Guillards F/2 is still primarily exported from America.
Guillards F/2 is a Growing Medium, not a formula. A formula is used to make F/2.

The thread is here so people can discover other options, as apposed to paying plus or minus $50 in fee's and another $30 for American based F/2. There are people on eBay that import F/2 in mass from the US, water it down with dH2O and sell it in 250ml cups locally for profit.

Some great enthusiastic people have been contributing to the thread with a lot of helpful info, like troubleshooting Miracle grow and having success is a really big one.

In my opinion it really is important for Reefers all over the planet to have ease of access to fertilizer when culturing their own Phytoplankton at home. I'm no scientist and I've barely any chemistry experience, I don't have chemistry equipment like an Autoclave to actually attempt and try to make F2, and even if I did get an Autoclave, I wouldn't know how to follow the method of the F2 Formula absolutely perfectly until I had done way more research and attempted the Formula at least a few times. Plus buying an Autoclave would be worth years of dosing F/2.

I recently found these Reef Revolution products which are my personal go-to because they're made and sold locally in Australia and thought I'd share incase anyone was interested.

 

[Koh23]

For all of you, who like me are outside us.... Go to any hardware store, greenhouse and similar, and buy plain liquid plant fertilizer..... Very cheap, and every country/market had good selection....

Work great, of course i didnt do any chemical analyze of phyto that is produced using this type of product, but years of use probably speaks enough that you acctualy dont put anything harmfull in tank....

 

[Kmst80]

So a little update .. it's about 2 weeks after adding miracle grow and heat to the phyto.. it is substantial darker .. going to leave it for another week and a bit and I will check it again.. so far I am sold on the miracle grow. And a 1 us gallon mix would last me a year I am sure

I am in australia and i use miracle grow too. I usually leave my phyto for 2 to 3 weeks and end up with nice dark green phyto. I use 5 ml miracle grow on a 1.5 lt bottle.

 

[Boogieman]

I am in australia and i use miracle grow too. I usually leave my phyto for 2 to 3 weeks and end up with nice dark green phyto. I use 5 ml miracle grow on a 1.5 lt bottle.

I am also about 1.5 litters and so far have given it one 5 ml shot of miracle grow seems to be working well

 

[HuduVudu]

I use MgNO3 and CaNO3 for my phyto. Works well.

 

[Boogieman]

I use MgNO3 and CaNO3 for my phyto. Works well.

And where do you get Magnesium Nitrate and Calcium Nitrate?

 

[HuduVudu]

And where do you get Magnesium Nitrate and Calcium Nitrate?

Calcium NItrate:

Magnesium Nitrate:

I am sure there are other places that have this, but these are the ones that I use.

 

[Boogieman]

Calcium NItrate:

Magnesium Nitrate:

I am sure there are other places that have this, but these are the ones that I use.

Well that's easy enough eh. Then to just figure out the ratio and probably add iron into the mix too ...

 

[reefsaver]

I use MgNO3 and CaNO3 for my phyto. Works well.

I'm very interested in this. Sounds a little more sterile than using Miracle Grow and the thread would probably love to hear about your regiment and results. The fact that anyone could go to a hardware/garden store and buy MgNO3 and CaNO3 on demand locally, and have success with growing Phyto is a big deal. Although I don't entirely know the availability of the substances we're talking about WW, I guess Miracle Grow is so talked about because it's basically everywhere.

 

[HuduVudu]

I'm very interested in this. Sounds a little more sterile than using Miracle Grow and the thread would probably love to hear about your regiment and results. The fact that anyone could go to a hardware/garden store and buy MgNO3 and CaNO3 on demand locally, and have success with growing Phyto is a big deal. Although I don't entirely know the availability of the substances we're talking about WW, I guess Miracle Grow is so talked about because it's basically everywhere.

I do have a process that I use for dosing and growing phyto. It is simple I will detail it really quick.

I have two plastic containers. I mixed new salt water, put that in my tank and then pulled the tank water into the containers. I bought some phyto feast and poured a big chunk of the bottle into both containers. This gave me the start for the culture. I am in south texas so we get a lot of sun. I put the containers out on a picnic bench in the yard during the day. I have to watch the water levels because they evap a lot of water especially when it is warmer. I mix them daily and add water as neccessary. I add a few crystals of the nitrates every other day. At night I bring in the containers and my wife will swap a small cup of phyto for tank water out of each container. I don't throw anything out and I don't restart the cultures.

Some interesting things I have found. First I have been doing this for about six months. I was having to refresh the culture early on because it would thin out pretty badly. It dawned on me that dosing more often would be better. That fixed the problem quickly. Now with as much light as I get I get a very green, very thick culture. Sometimes I have to dump the culture into a bucket to clean the containers out because they get a lot of algal growth and crud on the sides of the containers. I just soap and water and scrubby them clean rinse dry and throw the culture back in. Seems like about 2 to 3 weeks that this is necessary. Cloudy weather seems to grow just as well as sunny. Summer is coming and I am probably going to pull them before the heat of the day really kicks in even though they do get pretty warm and it doesn't seem to impact them badly. I don't run any pump or air stones. This doesn't seem to impact the culture. It doesn't get really cold here and I have had the cultures in 40F and that didn't seem to impact. I do pull at night and I wouldn't allow them to be in freezing temps but they can take the cold. I am a bit surprised at the temp range that is acceptable to the cultures.

I find this to be pretty simple and when I first started I looked at all of the fancy stuff and I seriously considered doing that because I wanted something that worked. I wasn't in a rush so I decided to try a different way and came up with this. I am very happy with it and it works well.

 

[Boogieman]

So an interesting turn of events ... my phyto was nice and dark green. Decided to dose it to my tank.. a bit over half of the bottle so about 1 liter of the 1.5 liter bottle... with the plan to add salt water and continue the culture . I wanted to add tank water as my goal is to automate a "water change" with phyto in and tank water back to the bottle. So as to not dilute the phyto to much I added about 500 mls of tank water dosed 5 mls of miracle grow then after a couple days I added the rest of the water to bring it back up to about 1.5 liters . Now about 5 days later my culture is almost clear it seems all the phyto has died.. the only thing I changed is adding tank water vs adding new salt water .. not sure why that would have killed it.

 

[reefsaver]

Just to add another product to this thread, I had found another Culture thread and the gentleman who made it provided great info on his history of culturing phyto and his experience with using F/2, Miracle Grow, and now uses TNC Aquarium Plant Nutrients. His names sixty_reefer and this is the thread https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-automate-a-phytoplankton-culture.742789/

 

[mdpitts]

I didn't read to the end of these comments but I just got some of this same stuff sold by The Coral Ranch - Guillards f/2 if anyone is still interested.

https://a.co/d/c2IMxeW

 

[Kmst80]

Just to add another product to this thread, I had found another Culture thread and the gentleman who made it provided great info on his history of culturing phyto and his experience with using F/2, Miracle Grow, and now uses TNC Aquarium Plant Nutrients. His names sixty_reefer and this is the thread https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-automate-a-phytoplankton-culture.742789/

I use it too, it's not cheap but it is low in phosphate. I dose a ml per liter per week.

 

[NaanDu]

So an interesting turn of events ... my phyto was nice and dark green. Decided to dose it to my tank.. a bit over half of the bottle so about 1 liter of the 1.5 liter bottle... with the plan to add salt water and continue the culture . I wanted to add tank water as my goal is to automate a "water change" with phyto in and tank water back to the bottle. So as to not dilute the phyto to much I added about 500 mls of tank water dosed 5 mls of miracle grow then after a couple days I added the rest of the water to bring it back up to about 1.5 liters . Now about 5 days later my culture is almost clear it seems all the phyto has died.. the only thing I changed is adding tank water vs adding new salt water .. not sure why that would have killed it.

It could have killed the culture using your tank water instead of fresh mixed salt water because there are microorganism such as zooplankton in our tanks that feed on phyto. So you added a ton of microscopic phyto-consuming organisms to your culture and they ate it all up. That's why it's impossible to just culture the phyto directly in your main tank. It gets consumed.

 

[Boogieman]

It could have killed the culture using your tank water instead of fresh mixed salt water because there are microorganism such as zooplankton in our tanks that feed on phyto. So you added a ton of microscopic phyto-consuming organisms to your culture and they ate it all up. That's why it's impossible to just culture the phyto directly in your main tank. It gets consumed.

Thank you.. I have since learned that. Lol. I have only tried once since with fresh saltwater but was unsuccessful.. I may try again soon.. I have also learned that miracle grow can or does have a large amount of copper that can be problematic for a reef aquarium.. but I don't know this for sure.