Thinking of Culturing Phytoplankton at Home.

I dont know near as much as you on the subject but was planning on growing my own someday as well.

If you do it, keep us posted.

Reef nutrition is going to be at the fall fest. All they do is grow & sell phyto so they might be a good source to ask some questions.

 

I didnt have time to read the article but I think that is why they have a very limited shelf life.

 

I used to grow my own phyto. It's relatively easy, but it's still a major pain in the *** and if you don't monitor it closely, it will crash causing you to start over again.

After talking to Ryan and a few others, I think I'm going to switch to carbon dosing. From what I can tell it should provide the same feeding benefits of dosing phyto while at the same time lowering the overall nutrient load of the system.

-JB

 

How can carbon dosing feed your corals & clams?

 

By dosing carbon, you are encouraging the growth of bacterioplankton which both chokes out nuisance algae and feeds the tank at the same time.

-JB

 

Wow I never heard of that. How do you dose it?

 

You can dose sugar or vodka, but I'm going to try "Brightwell Aquatics Reef BioFuel" which is the product that Ryan recommended to me and seems to be a bit safer from what I can tell.
You have to be careful not to overdose, or bad things can happen (I know, big surprise!).
-JB

 

In a round about way carbon dosing is the basis behind ULNS methods like Zeovit.

 

Phytoplankton is fun to grow once, but can be expensive to try to do long term. I used to do it while growing out clownfish fry, but if i try my hand at that again I will skip phytoplankton culturing as it was just too time consuming.

 

Phyto cultures if kept completely sterile are cheap, but I have never found a way to keep things perfectly sterile and found I needed to restart my cultures fairly often. If not kept sterile a culture can quickly turn from phytoplankton to green cyano bacteria. They look similar and grow similar, but only one is good for your tank... I used bacterial filtration and still had to restart my cultures monthly to ensure quality. Monthly restarts mean at least one $12-$15 starter culture, new culture vessels, new airline, a new pump if the other was contaminated, fresh fertilizer... The biggest issue is time.

 

Here is an instuctional article on Carbon Dosing "Vodka" from a issue of Reefkeeping http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php I am currently going to begin this.

 

I grow 8 2-Liter bottles of phyto a month off of 1 20W bulb and have had great luck with it for about a year. I don't know where you live Monkey Man but if you are in the area and want to stop by and see my setup just let me know.