Phyto crash question

Spare time · Jul 5, 2022

Often when I have seen phyto crash, I see these pop up in the containers, or brownish blobs floating at the bottom of the container. Does anyone know what is going on here with the phyto?

I think this crash as contamination or messing up with the salinity (I got kinda lazy with mixing salt for it), but I am curious if anyone knows exactly what is happening when this appears

ScubaFish802 · Jul 7, 2022

I don't have any experience for you, but I'll bump and tag @Eldredge to see if maybe they have seen anything similar

Eldredge · Jul 7, 2022

ScubaFish802 said:
I don't have any experience for you, but I'll bump and tag @Eldredge to see if maybe they have seen anything similar

I'm pretty sure that you are looking at the dead phyto cells that have collected in that area. It's really hard to say what killed them. Most species are fairly tolerant to a pretty wide range of salinities, but if you are way off, that could do it. As the OP mentioned, contamination is a common culprit. And, there is always the possibility that it ran out of nutrients if the culture was getting old.

Spare time · Jul 8, 2022

Eldredge said:
I'm pretty sure that you are looking at the dead phyto cells that have collected in that area. It's really hard to say what killed them. Most species are fairly tolerant to a pretty wide range of salinities, but if you are way off, that could do it. As the OP mentioned, contamination is a common culprit. And, there is always the possibility that it ran out of nutrients if the culture was getting old.

It wasn't very dense. It could have been contamination from a pump I put in there but this started before hand. Maybe the f/2 I have is going bad

Eldredge · Jul 8, 2022

Spare time said:
It wasn't very dense. It could have been contamination from a pump I put in there but this started before hand. Maybe the f/2 I have is going bad

The pump could definitely be the problem. It could cause contamination and/or damage/kill the cells. It would probably be a lot better to use an airline to mix the culture. Good luck.

Spare time · Jul 8, 2022

Eldredge said:
The pump could definitely be the problem. It could cause contamination and/or damage/kill the cells. It would probably be a lot better to use an airline to mix the culture. Good luck.

I added the pump when I started noticing the dead phyto clumping as a means to try and break it up. Its only a nano pump ion a 5 gallon container. I was using the airline tubing before (and with the pump), and clumping started before the pump went in