phytoplankton

[Victor_C3]

You don’t need to have a degree to be smart and interested in learning! You might just be a nerd at heart.

I didn’t really learn much about chemistry in college, in fact it was my worst class. I didn’t really learn anything until I started working in the field.

 

[Bethany Yates]

Quite impressive!

I have a degree in chemistry, but it’s not nearly as helpful as your background in this hobby. I worked mostly in inorganic chemistry and precious metals and their alloys.

That is really cool!!! What a fascinating field! In the process of my research I was able to meet several times with some of the people in charge of plankton for Reef Nutrition and I learned a boat load about processing plankton for food in aquaria.

 

[Aaronreef]

Sounds like you're the go to for all my phyto culture needs

 

[Aaronreef]

I

 

[Bethany Yates]

Aqua Medic Plankton Reactor With Light Unit – Marine Aquatics

marineaquatics.co.uk

Unfortunately I have no degree in anything and only a very basic understanding of chemistry so I'm the dark here but willing to learn

Your photos look good but you should be able to see movement like you said... If it were me, I would not buy that crazy plankton reactor, I've had good results with any clear container (like an empty 2 Liter bottle), fluorescent lighting (or led grow light), aeration, and fertilizers. I have never cultured tetraselmis though. My two tips would be to keep your materials clean, bacteria can wipe out a culture overnight, and split your culture into more than one container, 4 is ideal as it is not too many to handle, this way if your culture crashes odds are one container will survive.

 

[Aqua Man]

phyto is green, so what you bought should be a nice dark green.

this is setup I’ve been using, only a month. I’ve split once to make 2 containers. Saved some in the fridge to feed and restart if needed. Got phyto from amazon, Mercer of Montana. First batch wasn’t as dark green as what I bought. Not sure why yet.

 

[Aqua Man]

@Bethany Yates you make it sound so easy!
may I pick your brain?

What’s a good temp?

How important is the light and time it’s on/off?

Do I have to much air going in the culture?
Thank you!

 

[Aaronreef]

Thanks, not sure I'm willing to spend that sort of money on a reactor to be honest not even sure I can keep it alive yet. Was just wondering if adding extra Co2 was something to do. By the looks of it the reactor doesn't have any inlets for Co2 so I'm assuming it's just marketing jargon.
I've made sure everything is clean
I've also made a few adjustments in recent days.

 

[Bethany Yates]

@Bethany Yates you make it sound so easy!
may I pick your brain?

What’s a good temp?

How important is the light and time it’s on/off?

Do I have to much air going in the culture?
Thank you!

I love to talk about plankton and I almost never get the chance, ha ha. My husband is sick of hearing about it!

For temperature, you really want your culture just above room temperature. My culture lives under a fluorescent light so that is all the heat it needs, only in the winter I will sometimes put it in a styrofoam hut to keep the temperature from dropping but I live in Southern California so cold for us is like 60 degrees, lol.

For cultures in a small container, I would recommend 16 hours on and 8 hours off. Technically in a large culture, you can keep the light on all the time HOWEVER, more light means the culture will be producing waste faster, taking up nutrients faster, and reproducing faster. If they run out of fert the will start dying and if the culture is too dense they will start dying so you will have to play with the lighting to see what is manageable for you.

For aeration, you want it just strong enough that nothing can accumulate on the bottom but not so strong that froth is building at the top of your container. Too much air will cause you phyto to be flying around the container crashing into the sides and bursting, too little and they accumulate on the bottom and can start to rot. I like to get rigid airline tubing that is about an inch longer than my culture container to go in the container and attach to regular soft tubing, this will have the best effect for keeping the culture evenly circulating.

Also, mercer of montana is the BEST. Your culture looks like the air is a little strong and a tiny bit yellow. I would tone it down on the air a little and maybe add more fertilizer... what brand are you using?

 

[Aqua Man]

Mercer sent the Guillards F/2 fertilizer. Used .8 cc in the container. 8 cups total volume.

The pics do look kinda yellow. Is over fertilization a concern if I add more?

Just took that photo, it’s been 12 days since I split. Was trying to see if culture would darken up. Last time I split at 7 days and it was a lighter green than original batch from Mercer.

70-72 in my garage and 15 hrs of light. Need to get a timer. I’ll see if I can get less air. It is kinda boiling.

Thank you, I appreciate your insight!!

 

[Aqua Man]

Would you recommend a bigger container to cultivate in?

Instead of splitting I can just go bigger and add salt water and F/2? 1.019 salinity

 

[Bethany Yates]

Mercer sent the Guillards F/2 fertilizer. Used .8 cc in the container. 8 cups total volume.

The pics do look kinda yellow. Is over fertilization a concern if I add more?

Just took that photo, it’s been 12 days since I split. Was trying to see if culture would darken up. Last time I split at 7 days and it was a lighter green than original batch from Mercer.

70-72 in my garage and 15 hrs of light. Need to get a timer. I’ll see if I can get less air. It is kinda boiling.

Thank you, I appreciate your insight!!

Hmmm, ok. Yeah that does sound like plenty of fert, don't add any more. It could just be aeration but any tweaking at this point might be spliting hairs, it looks like you are doing well.

And it is NOT easy lol. This stuff takes a lot of work and I did this in a lab setting, which is way easier than at home.

 

[Bethany Yates]

Would you recommend a bigger container to cultivate in?

Instead of splitting I can just go bigger and add salt water and F/2? 1.019 salinity

I do think that bigger is better, but having more than one culture container is a must so only go as big as works for you.

 

[Aaronreef]

Bit of a silly question

What does a dead culture look like ?

 

[Aqua Man]

Your setup looks like it will work Aaron. Nice and green looking too.

From my research, it will smell bad. Live culture has no smell to me. Loss of color is bad also.

 

[Aaronreef]

Ok thank you,
I'm hoping it does
my first time doing it so not expecting miracles
It's getting greener by the day
I did spill some of it out of two containers yesterday so had to top back up with saltwater and a bit of culture out of one bottle I didn't spill
I was hoping to use some after 10 days but will probably have to extend it a bit now
How often do you add F2 ? I was thinking to only add it at the start and after it's been split and topped off with fresh saltwater

 

[Aqua Man]

Same here, only adding F2 when splitting. Did 50% splits last time at 7 days.

 

[Aaronreef]

So I've put some under the microscope.
Nearly all of it is darting around
There is some that's not moving
The orange circle are the bits not moving everything else is

 

[Aaronreef]

I remember someone saying movement is a bad think in the culture?
Thai is a video of my culture is this not good?

 

[Aqua Man]

Wow, whatever is in there is moving around a lot! I don’t know, I haven’t looked under a scope yet.