Is phyto good or bad?

[xxkenny90xx]

For water quality?

I have used ocean nutrition phyto in the past but I just came across a great deal for fresh live phyto and jumped on it for the first time.

I was under the impression that the live stuff can actually clean up the water a bit but now I'm reading that it makes it dirtier...

Soooo what do you guys think?

 

[HuduVudu]

It feeds the filter feeders making them bigger and stronger. They clean up the water not the phyto.

 

[Dark_Knightt]

I add a few squirts of Reef Nutrition PhytoFeast every now and then, clouds up the tank for about 15-20mins, but it feeds my filter feeding corals, so I am happy. Plus if you have copepods it will feed them.
So in conclusion, phyto is always a great thing to have. Not necessary, but I would recommend.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

It feeds the filter feeders making them bigger and stronger. They clean up the water not the phyto.

So does the live phyto itself foul the water similar to using reef roids or other coral foods then? Would you say the end result after dosing live phyto for, say, one month would be lower nutrient levels?

 

[flampton]

Well it's complicated, lol. Definitely can go both ways.

I believe @Dana Riddle has raised the point that if the cells are alive, lighting is good and they're not immediately skimmed out they should replicate and thus use up nutrients. I agree on this point. However as some will be food or lyse it will have the potential to raise nutrients.

Thus I believe timing (add lights on, verse lights off), level of skimming (wet/dry), phyto freshness, etc will determine which way the nutrients may swing.

Oh and if someone is using home phyto or poorly grown phyto they could have nutrient issues as well (too much phosphate or nitrate in the growth medium).

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Well it's complicated, lol. Definitely can go both ways.

I believe @Dana Riddle has raised the point that if the cells are alive, lighting is good and they're not immediately skimmed out they should replicate and thus use up nutrients. I agree on this point. However as some will be food or lyse it will have the potential to raise nutrients.

Thus I believe timing (add lights on, verse lights off), level of skimming (wet/dry), phyto freshness, etc will determine which way the nutrients may swing.

Oh and if someone is using home phyto or poorly grown phyto they could have nutrient issues as well (too much phosphate or nitrate in the growth medium).

Very interesting, so I'll dose during the day with my skimmer off and see where this takes me. Any idea how long to leave it off for? And you mentioned freshness, how long does it stay live in the refrigerator? Or is there a better way to store it?

 

[HuduVudu]

It depends on your aquarium's ability to handle the nutrient load.

Phyto is dosing algae essentially. You are adding nutrients to your tank. That means your are putting nitrate and phosphate in your tank. If you tank can't manage this load you are going to create more problems than you solve.

I think phyto is great. I use it on both of my tanks 40ml per day. My LFS makes it so I am getting fresh phyto. My established tank sucks it up like it's nothing. The nitrates on that tank are now 0. I got tired of dosing nitrate and I don't think it was helping anything. My new tank struggles with the load. The nitrates on that tank are 50ppm. I just got my new light up and it is ramping up. The algaes are starting to come and the I saw a big spot of GHA. gonna move snails to deal with it.

Phyto is food. Plain and simple. It just depends on what you are targeting.

 

[HuduVudu]

FYI I don't have skimmers.

 

[JosephM]

Personally I live by live phyto. Dose 20ml, hoping to bump up to 25ml, everyday in my ~40 gal system. I see new feather dusters popping up all the time and it has been helping my GHA die off. They key is to start slow and make sure your system can handle it. I have heavy export so I import heavy.

 

[flampton]

Very interesting, so I'll dose during the day with my skimmer off and see where this takes me. Any idea how long to leave it off for? And you mentioned freshness, how long does it stay live in the refrigerator? Or is there a better way to store it?

Definitely in the refrigerator, and make sure to shake the bottle every few days as the cells perish when they clump on the bottom. The shelf-life is strain dependent though. So Nanno seems to be the most hardy and so like a month at least, with all the other strains being somewhat shorter. I buy enough for one month. If I had a store nearby I'd probably by a couple weeks worth at a time.

I usually turn my skimmer down after phyto addition in the AM so it is just aerating and then when I get back from work I turn it back up to skim on the wetter side. The reason I keep my skimmer on is because we lack O2 at my elevation.

Also I run larger pore sponges for mechanical filtration (that inTank blue/white stuff) as I don't want it all to end up in a small micron sock.

@HuduVudu yup I agree all food for you if you aren't running a skimmer.

 

[malacoda]

I wouldn't dose phyto simply for the sake of trying to 'clean' your water. Skimmers, carbon, marine pure blocks and other methods of mechanical & chemical filtration are much more 'controllable.'

Having said that, like JosephM, I wouldn't run a stable tank without out phyto ... because I really like having anemone crabs, bivalves, mollusks, squirts, feather dusters, pods and all other sorts of filter feeders bring life and variety to my rocks and tank.

I'm sure that the few that came in on my live rock and survived the cure would've slowly starved off without it. But, instead, they growing and popping up all over like crazy.

 

[Kenneth Wingerter]

I was under the impression that the live stuff can actually clean up the water a bit but now I'm reading that it makes it dirtier...

As in, live phyto dirties the water more than dead phyto? Just curious, where did you read that?

 

[xxkenny90xx]

I was under the impression that the live stuff can actually clean up the water a bit but now I'm reading that it makes it dirtier...

As in, live phyto dirties the water more than dead phyto? Just curious, where did you read that?

No I don't think that is true, I'm sure the dead stuff is worse. I was just asking if the live stuff is bad for water quality as well

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Thanks for the info guys. My tank is old and stable (and dirty) so I'm not necessarily looking to clean the water, but depending on how the water quality reacts to the phyto will determine how much and how often I dose. For comparison I would never dose reef roids daily, that stuff is like pure po4.

We'll I just did my first dose. Just broadcasted 30ml in my 112g tank for now. But hopefully I'll be upping that dose significantly soon enough