Growing phyto

reeferpat137 · May 26, 2022

Im on day 8 of my phyto culture, im starting to get a seaweed smell, is that good or bad? Im thinking about splitting today

reeferpat137 · May 26, 2022

Anyone?

Joe Kennedy · Jun 20, 2022

I know I'm late to the party here, but I can't tell if you have lights behind your culture as well, but still looks pretty light for a split in my opinion. Generally day 8 is a great time to restart a new culture though.

What type of phytoplankton are you growing, Nannochloropsis? They all have different sizes and densities, therefore will look different at the same cell concentrations.

If I can make a suggestion, with such a tall container, you may want to consider lighting it from the side rather than the top. As it gets more and more dense, you'll have better penetration of light from the side rather than the top. Also, redundancy is key - If you can have 2 cultures going, it'll help if one crashes without having to restart from scratch.

Goodluck!

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Joe.
Live Food for your Aquarium
https://www.reefsolutions.ca

reeferpat137 · Jun 20, 2022

Joe Kennedy said:
I know I'm late to the party here, but I can't tell if you have lights behind your culture as well, but still looks pretty light for a split in my opinion. Generally day 8 is a great time to restart a new culture though.

What type of phytoplankton are you growing, Nannochloropsis? They all have different sizes and densities, therefore will look different at the same cell concentrations.

If I can make a suggestion, with such a tall container, you may want to consider lighting it from the side rather than the top. As it gets more and more dense, you'll have better penetration of light from the side rather than the top. Also, redundancy is key - If you can have 2 cultures going, it'll help if one crashes without having to restart from scratch.

Goodluck!

----------
Joe.
Live Food for your Aquarium
https://www.reefsolutions.ca

I used a batch of ocean magic. Im guessing it crashed as it never got any darker. Upgraded the light from a 4000k CFL 60w= to a 6500k 100w= led. I got some straight nano and got a good batch from that, 2 gal. 3rd attempt crashed(played around with F2 dosage),so i started my 4th this morning. Have thought about picking up some more lighting for the sides

Joe Kennedy · Jun 21, 2022

reeferpat137 said:
I used a batch of ocean magic. Im guessing it crashed as it never got any darker. Upgraded the light from a 4000k CFL 60w= to a 6500k 100w= led. I got some straight nano and got a good batch from that, 2 gal. 3rd attempt crashed(played around with F2 dosage),so i started my 4th this morning. Have thought about picking up some more lighting for the sides

You can over do lighting in the beginning of a culture - if you're going to add bulbs, make sure you can turn them on and off independently or in banks of lighting.

Rock the one light from the side and see if you notice an improvement, it may be large enough for the size of culture you have. Ramp up the light as the culture darkens.

Best route, yes, grab a single strain of phytoplankton inoculant from any supplier that'll ship to your location. You'll want to maintain that inoculant to start up all future cultures and use those starter cultures to step up into larger sizes. Even the largest phyto farms tend to start all their cultures from pure inoculants of under 500ml. Then ramp it up into whatever size they're capable of in incremental steps.

F/2 should be 1/4 tsp per litre or 1 tsp per gallon.

Hope that helps a bit!