plankton reactor (help)

[discusdean]

would any of you reef aholics have any idea when a plankton reactor can be classed as ready to harvest as my aqua medic unit has been set up and running for two weeks and is a pale lime green soup at the moment and is not the dark rich green i was expecting .am dosing with fertiliser as directed and air rating 24 7 .(please help).

 

[mps9506]

I've never used a plankton reactor before. Sorry.
Having cultured phyto before I usally siphoned off three quarters of the container every two weeks when it got dark green.
Growth rates are dependant ont he strain of algae you are growing, the temperature and amount of oxygen and nutrients in the water.

 

[discusdean]

thanks for that maybe just need to leave it a litttle longer or change the strain have looked under a micro scope and the culture is growing on but slowly

 

[Brucey]

The Aquamedic bit of kit is a good bit of geer but you can get just as good results in a coke bottle. IMO. I ran some for 2 years but have stopped now as i was getting a build up of PO4 in the tank. ANYWAY, that aside, yes you should be aiming for a very dark green culture. A few tips for you. It sounds crazy but do a 10% water change every week. Sometimes the water can fowl and you'll lose the lot. This helps to avoid this happening. Clean the reactor every month. A film can build up on the inside of the reactor and cut down light levels entering it. Don't be too keen on feeding the fertilizer, like fish, it's better to underfeed than over feed. Take my advice and keep two cultures going. Eventually, for no reason, one culture will crash and you'll have a backup.

Heres a good URL for you
http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/r_toonen_102500.html

A quick pic of mine, you'll see the culture is new, after about 3 weeks you couldn't even see light through it

HTH
Brucey

 

[Gina]

Culturing your own Phyto

Here a few links from our knowledgebase. Might be something here for you.

 

[mps9506]

FWIW I kept 4 bottles going Basically setup like brucey. This let me have basically a bottle of phyto ready every week. And like brucey I quit feeding phyto a while ago.
Might start it up again to start culturing rotifers though.

 

[Brucey]

Mike, yep, that is the ONLY reason I would start again but I've tried Rotifers a few times now and always fail miserably. They are SO susceptibly to crashing at the slightest fouling of the water from over feeding phyto.
JMO
Brucey

 

[gussy]

What's the phytoplankton culture used for again?

 

[mps9506]

The phyto pheeds the philter pheeders , and little micro critters that your corals and fish may or may not feed on.
It is also used to feed rotifers which can be used to feed clownfish larvae, your reef tank, other stuff too.
The phyto culture stations are pretty easy to setup and taske minimal time to maintain, and you can produce gallons of phytoplankton from a tiny culture.
I ALWAYS had too much.
It is a good reef club project. someone with the room in their garage or house can start up a phyto with everyone kicking in a few bucks then you can easily share the phyto every week or two between a bunch of people as most people don't have that much use for phyto.

 

[gussy]

Seems like lots of work...why not just do a dose of LiquidLife? Plus, I could use the space for the culture to add another tank.

 

[mps9506]

It isn't a lot of work.
You have a couple of soda bottles an aerator to aerate the bottles. Add light and a cultre starter. Feed em a small amount of fertilizer when you start the culture and presto you are done. Once a week or once every two weeks depending on growth rate pour off three quarters of the bottle and fill back up with clean water.
Also liquidlife is different than feeding phytoplankton. Phyto is what is found in products like DT's. It is just much cheaper to culture your own. Minimal expense and effort. Or you can pay 13 dollars a bottle and get about 1/8 of what you can easily produce in a week.

 

[baja_01]

I plan on setting up a large culture station this spring.

I think I will get most of my supplies from www.florida-aqua-farms.com I already have their book on the way.

 

[mps9506]

Can't go wrong with florida aqua farms.

 

[gussy]

Hmm...maybe I should give it a try.

 

[mps9506]

That is where we got our starter cultures from. We still have some starter roti stuff from them to that we never tried.