Phytoplankton and rotifer cultures can be set up easily on a shelf in your basement or other temperature-controlled area in 2 liter plastic soda bottles or similar clear containers. The phyto cultures have to be well lit, preferably from the side to maximize efficiency. When I did it way back when, I used a horizontally mounted shoplight and lined up 3 or 4 of the 2 liter phyto cultures in a row parallel to and a couple inches away from the 2 4-ft 40watt bulbs of the fixture. The rotifer cultures are fine on whatever ambient light is available. Drop an airline into each bottle to keep the cultures turning over. I got my starter cultures from Aquatic Ecosystems (Pentair)
Pentair Aquatic Eco-Systems. You would want some type of saltwater rotifer and phyto. I found that the phyto discs and the rotifer resting eggs were relatively inexpensive and worked fine. These days if I was going to set up a phyto culture, I would probably go with LEDs, but if you have shop lights laying around...
You will of course want to get the algae going real well before starting the rotifers. You may want to get a screen for the rotifers when you place your order because those are hard to find anywhere else. They also aren't cheap. Otherwise, you have to put rotifer culture water in your reef and it may have residual phyto or plant food. Ah, the key I found to phyto culture was feed it well. The second it starts to not be the brightest green (turning yellow or pale), it needs to be fed. You can use any decent garden fertilizer, and you don't want to overfeed and end up with residual fertilizer in the rotifer culture which could then end up in your reef. You should stagger the phyto cultures because they tend to crash, maybe maintain 2 rotifer cultures to 4 phyto.
Anyway, I found phytoplankton and rotifer culture to be relatively easy to setup and maintain given you have a few square feet of shelf space to dedicate to it. You can get a really high yield of rotifers out of a couple of 2 liter cultures.
