Phyto breeding containers?

[Dave-T]

Best way is to buy a gallon mason jar and poly bags. You can wrap the jar in LEDs or just use an overhead grow light. When you are ready to harvest just pull out the plastic bag, add the phyto to jars. Toss the bag and then reseed the new colony. No cleaning and so little maintenance..like 30$ to start minus the initial phyto. Changing the bags prevents crashes by removing cleaning products and dead material in jar

Interesting! So this is what you do? Do you screw the top over the bag? Would you mind posting a pic of your setup and saying what jars and bags you use?

 

[wmb0003]

I like using half gallon mason jars. I think it’s important to match your container to your usage or you will end up making way too much. If you have friends or local reefers that you can offload them to that’s great. I culture 4 different species and have a setup for 2 half gallons at the same time. I swap out the species every other week. I have enough for myself and 2 local reefers and then still give some away occasionally.

 

[Dave-T]

I like using half gallon mason jars. I think it’s important to match your container to your usage or you will end up making way too much. If you have friends or local reefers that you can offload them to that’s great. I culture 4 different species and have a setup for 2 half gallons at the same time. I swap out the species every other week. I have enough for myself and 2 local reefers and then still give some away occasionally.

I was wondering about that. I suppose the amount you make should be proportional to the size of your system. How much phyto should be in production for a 350 gallon system?

 

[pandaparties]

Interesting! So this is what you do? Do you screw the top over the bag? Would you mind posting a pic of your setup and saying what jars and bags you use?

Yup I just screw the lid on over the bag! I'll send a picture later this evening but it's pretty simple and easy

 

[wmb0003]

I was wondering about that. I suppose the amount you make should be proportional to the size of your system. How much phyto should be in production for a 350 gallon system?

I think 1 gallon a week would be about perfect for your system. I believe the suggestion is feeding 1ml of phyto per gallon of water daily. So you are looking at 2450 ml in 7 days, or 3500ml in 10 days. Phyto can be cultured in 7-10 days. You need to save 15-25% to keep the culture going so a gallon is 3785 ml and you will be yielding 2800-3200ml of phyto for feeding your tank every culture.

 

[sixty_reefer]

That looks sweet, but shouldn’t you be concerned with dosing the phyto fertilizer into your tank? My reefing guru maintence guy says that’s a big no-no.

That’s a fair point, although not much different from a traditional culture. Any culture will have a trace of nutrients at all times although the fertiliser may be the biggest difference, in my culture I use a fertiliser with less phosphates in comparison to other brands that have a higher NPK ratio. F2 for example don’t give you a ingredient list and you won’t be able to have a idea of the N to P ratio or concentration of the product not to mention that some may have silica which is not needed to grow our phytoplankton cultures, Guillards formula was developed to grow all kinds of phytoplankton including diatoms that need silica. So I’m a way if you are using f2 with the original formula you may be introducing silica to your tank as the stuff we grow don’t use it.
In addition the fertiliser I use in mine is from organic sources of nutrients in comparison to the usual fertiliser that are made of inorganic No3 and Po4, micro and macro algaes have to use more energy to assimilate those forms of nutrients therefore using a organic source of nutrients gives me a more concentrated culture as the phytoplankton don’t have to waste energy in trying to reconverte nitrate into ammonia, the benefit is also that any of those organic nutrients escape into the tank they will be a good source for coral as many will know most corals that we keep are photosynthetic and they will use those nutrients to grow before being oxidised into nitrate.
so in conclusion you really should look into your fertiliser as that’s the risk in both methods. Using this method I’ve also made a thread we’re I used phytoplankton and this fertiliser to lower inorganic nitrates and phosphates in my system wile replacing them with more desirable nutrients for coral and filter feeders.

 

[wmb0003]

That’s a fair point, although not much different from a traditional culture. Any culture will have a trace of nutrients at all times although the fertiliser may be the biggest difference, in my culture I use a fertiliser with less phosphates in comparison to other brands that have a higher NPK ratio. F2 for example don’t give you a ingredient list and you won’t be able to have a idea of the N to P ratio or concentration of the product not to mention that some may have silica which is not needed to grow our phytoplankton cultures, Guillards formula was developed to grow all kinds of phytoplankton including diatoms that need silica. So I’m a way if you are using f2 with the original formula you may be introducing silica to your tank as the stuff we grow don’t use it.
In addition the fertiliser I use in mine is from organic sources of nutrients in comparison to the usual fertiliser that are made of inorganic No3 and Po4, micro and macro algaes have to use more energy to assimilate those forms of nutrients therefore using a organic source of nutrients gives me a more concentrated culture as the phytoplankton don’t have to waste energy in trying to reconverte nitrate into ammonia, the benefit is also that any of those organic nutrients escape into the tank they will be a good source for coral as many will know most corals that we keep are photosynthetic and they will use those nutrients to grow before being oxidised into nitrate.
so in conclusion you really should look into your fertiliser as that’s the risk in both methods. Using this method I’ve also made a thread we’re I used phytoplankton and this fertiliser to lower inorganic nitrates and phosphates in my system wile replacing them with more desirable nutrients for coral and filter feeders.

Do you mind sharing what fertilizer you are using?

 

[sixty_reefer]

Do you mind sharing what fertilizer you are using?

Sure I use TNC complete only available in the UK

1ml diluted in a 1000ml RO will give you the below

And @((FORDTECH)) uses tropica plant growth specialised availability world wide unfortunately TNC only available here in the uk.

1ml diluted in 1000ml RO will give you the below

 

[((FORDTECH))]

I’m having great results with tropica

 

[dubmaneh]

I’m having great results with tropica

What dosage do you use? I started culturing nano and am using Tropica Specialized Nutrition at roughly 1ml/1000ml but my cultures look a little more yellow compared to the pictures I've seen online. Wondering if I'm not fertilizing enough.

 

[((FORDTECH))]

What dosage do you use? I started culturing nano and am using Tropica Specialized Nutrition at roughly 1ml/1000ml but my cultures look a little more yellow compared to the pictures I've seen online. Wondering if I'm not fertilizing enough.

I use 1.5 ml

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Just ordered my second 750ml bottle today. This stuff is great. I use it in my phyto auto growing and dosing system that has been running for over a year now that has not been touched other then filling saltwater reservoir with 1.20 saltwater every other month and topping off fertilizer reservoir every five or six months. Other than that I don’t even look at it as it doses over 400 mL of live phyto to my system every day

 

[Gtinnel]

Just ordered my second 750ml bottle today. This stuff is great. I use it in my phyto auto growing and dosing system that has been running for over a year now that has not been touched other then filling saltwater reservoir with 1.20 saltwater every other month and topping off fertilizer reservoir every five or six months. Other than that I don’t even look at it as it doses over 400 mL of live phyto to my system every day

I’d love to see your setup. I’ve been considering setting up some auto dosing for phyto so I don’t have to manually dose. I never even considered setting up some kind of auto growing setup.

 

[((FORDTECH))]

I’d love to see your setup. I’ve been considering setting up some auto dosing for phyto so I don’t have to manually dose. I never even considered setting up some kind of auto growing setup.

It’s amazing works so well if done right !!!! You should try it I’ll post some pics later today