Cyano in my Phyto

[Reefen]

So checked my tetraselmis phyto culture under micrscope and there are cyano strands, I know we dont want the red jelly stuff in our tanks, but is the free floating strands bad for our tanks, or Im hoping maybe its not so bad, im sure there are alot of people that dont know its in there cultures because of needing a microscope to see it

 

[Dan_P]

So checked my tetraselmis phyto culture under micrscope and there are cyano strands, I know we dont want the red jelly stuff in our tanks, but is the free floating strands bad for our tanks, or Im hoping maybe its not so bad, im sure there are alot of people that dont know its in there cultures because of needing a microscope to see it

@taricha , aren’t phyto cultures suppose to be only phytoplankton?

Since there are cyanobacteria lurking all over your aquarium, their presence in the phyto culture probably doesn‘t matter. It might matter that they are stealing food from your phyto culture.

 

[Reefen]

@taricha , aren’t phyto cultures suppose to be only phytoplankton?

Since there are cyanobacteria lurking all over your aquarium, their presence in the phyto culture probably doesn‘t matter. It might matter that they are stealing food from your phyto culture.

yes, phyto culture should be only phyto, mine has some how become contaminated with cyano. so i dont know if its usable

 

[taricha]

@taricha , aren’t phyto cultures suppose to be only phytoplankton?

Since there are cyanobacteria lurking all over your aquarium, their presence in the phyto culture probably doesn‘t matter. It might matter that they are stealing food from your phyto culture.

Unless you purchased a culture from a scientific culture source that maintains single strains pure enough for laboratory purposes, then what you get is going to be inevitably contaminated. It doesn't generally matter, because while culturing up your live phyto, you make the good stuff outgrow the contamination over time.

A 10 micron filter is nice to have and pour your culture through when harvesting, and culturing up from one batch to another, as that will remove any joined or clumped cells or most larger organisms.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I'm sure allot of people don't realize the bacterias and protazoans they are making in their homemade phyto concoctions, I don't think it takes much to get contaminated. This guy sure does though.

 

[Reefen]

Unless you purchased a culture from a scientific culture source that maintains single strains pure enough for laboratory purposes, then what you get is going to be inevitably contaminated. It doesn't generally matter, because while culturing up your live phyto, you make the good stuff outgrow the contamination over time.

A 10 micron filter is nice to have and pour your culture through when harvesting, and culturing up from one batch to another, as that will remove any joined or clumped cells or most larger organisms.

so is the cyano going through the filter, or is the phyto going through the filter

 

[taricha]

so is the cyano going through the filter, or is the phyto going through the filter

The single-cell phyto goes through the filter, but any clumps larger organisms strands of cyano Etc will get caught by a filter like that. ( I did Nano and t i-so, and they went through the 10 micron filter fine but it looks like tetraselmis might be bigger and could get hung up on 10 microns and need a larger filter size.)