Phytoplankton Culture Duration

[Nick Rose]

I have upgraded my phytoplankton culture setup from 16oz, 64oz to 1gal containers. Normally I would harvest at day 5 or 6 but the 1gals seem to be taking longer. I’m at Day 7 right now. Do larger containers take a longer time? When I first started culturing in the smaller containers I started with Nannochloropsis and have not had any crashes. The salinity is 1.019 and I put 3ml of Micro Algae Grow.

 

[Big G]

Bump

 

[Nick Rose]

I harvested two of the 1gals today (8 day culture) and left the other two to see if they get darker. Tried a different way of seeing how dense the culture was. I put the bottle on top of a flashlight. Comparing today’s culture to last week which was light green.

Last weeks culture

Today’s culture

 

[fastgoby]

Looks like toxic waste, lol. But in all seriousness, that's a nice setup. Just curious though, how do you clean the plastic bottles after you collect the culture? Or are you using new bottles each time?

 

[Nick Rose]

Actually I haven't cleaned them or replaced them. Its been almost a month. But I do plan on getting new bottles so maybe once a month I can exchange and clean them.

 

[fastgoby]

Ah, I see, that's pretty convenient. Are you using water that came with the bottle (de-chlorinated, of course), or your tank water?

 

[Nick Rose]

I use RODI water that I mix to 1.019