Growing phyto without a starter culture

[seabass]

No indication of a green tint yet.  However, I plan to keep it going for a couple of more weeks just to make sure.  I haven't given up on it yet.

[seabass]

What a difference 24 hours makes.  While the side view still looks pretty clear, the top down shows a distinct green tint to it.

 

 

[seabass]

Here's the porch culture today (09/13/18).

 

These were taken without shaking the culture since the day I started it.

 

So this culture has been going for a week now (plus the two weeks that it was sitting on my porch).  Today I added 3ml of Micro Algae Grow (f/2) and shook the culture.  It's really staring to grow now.  If nothing else, this should demonstrate just how easy it is to culture phyto.

[seabass]

I'm viewing this as a success, and am planning on continuing this phase.  However, in the back of my mind, I'm wondering if I didn't leave any stray cells on any part of my equipment, and that I'm still culturing my bird bath phyto.  Or is this actually a new culture started with newly captured spores?

 

I'm kind of tempted to redo this phase with totally different equipment.  IDK, what to you all think?  Do you have any interest in me starting phase 3 again?

[paneubert]

Keep this one going while also starting a brand new one?  That would be my vote.

[RayWhisperer]

I’ve been following, but don’t remember ( the memory is the second thing that goes, kiddos. Keep that in mind for when you start getting long in the tooth.) is this culture fresh, too? If so, I’d say start over with new, but with salty water.

[seabass]

25 minutes ago, RayWhisperer said:

I’d say start over with new, but with salty water.

Interesting, a bonus phase.  I might just do that.

 

I think I'll continue this culture for a couple more weeks.  It should be sufficiently green by then.  In the meantime, I'll put out another bowl of water (1.019 sg).  I'll probably top it off every so often, so that the salinity doesn't get too high.  Then I'll use a different bottle and airline tubing (so there are no residual cells).

[RayWhisperer]

5 minutes ago, seabass said:

Interesting, a bonus phase.  I might just do that.

 

I think I'll continue this culture for a couple more weeks.  It should be sufficiently green by then.  In the meantime, I'll put out another bowl of water (1.019 sg).  I'll probably top it off every so often, so that the salinity doesn't get too high.  Then I'll use a different bottle and airline tubing (so there are no residual cells).

Take note, kiddos. He said BONUS , not boner. Remember when I said the memory is the second thing that goes? Whaddya think the first is?

[paneubert]

39 minutes ago, RayWhisperer said:

Take note, kiddos. He said BONUS , not boner. Remember when I said the memory is the second thing that goes? Whaddya think the first is?

Our phyto cultures?

[Christopher Marks]

5 hours ago, seabass said:

Interesting, a bonus phase.  I might just do that.

 

I think I'll continue this culture for a couple more weeks.  It should be sufficiently green by then.  In the meantime, I'll put out another bowl of water (1.019 sg).  I'll probably top it off every so often, so that the salinity doesn't get too high.  Then I'll use a different bottle and airline tubing (so there are no residual cells).

Good plan, might as well put another culture test in action while the weather is nice! How long do you leave the bowls of water on the porch for?

[seabass]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

How long do you leave the bowls of water on the porch for?

The first time was two weeks.  Not that anything is special about 14 days, but that's what I'll try again.  I'm already changing one  potentially important variable (salinity).  If it fails, I should have time for at least one more attempt at collecting a freshwater culture.

[seabass]

09/14/18:

 

[paneubert]

Well......that escalated quickly....

[seabass]

Yeah, for almost a week, nothing then all the sudden, a phyto bloom.  The growth is exponential, so hard to notice when there were just a few cells.  Neat to watch.

 

 

Note: I put the saltwater on the porch today (09/14/18).

[seabass]

09/15/18:

 

[seabass]

Another test which I thought of would be to try and culture phytoplankton from our own tank water.  Seeing the success that I'm having with a small number of cells, I would guess that it would be possible to start a phyto culture with just our reef tank's water.

 

I'm not going to try this simply because I actively dose phytoplankton into my tanks.  Therefore these cells are likely already present.  However, it would be an interesting experiment for anybody who has a tank started with live rock, and has never dosed phyto before.

[seabass]

09/17/18:

[seabass]

9/25/18 (end of Phase 3):

   

Since the last update, I added 3ml of f/2.  Above is the culture today.  The first pic is of the unshaken culture (looks in need of harvesting); the second is after shaking; and the third is the culture next to a mature Nannochloropsis oculata culture (for a comparison).  I'm not bothering acclimating this culture to saltwater, and I dumped it this afternoon.

[seabass]

Phase 4 of 4 (saltwater porch phyto)

For this bonus phase, I put out a bowl of 1.019 sg saltwater on our porch for 10 days (I topped it off once during that time).  My hope is that it captured some algae spores and I will be able to culture a saltwater phyto culture from it.  I am using a new 2 liter soda bottle, cap, and airline tubing (both rigid and flexible).  I've tried my best not to cross contaminate the water with other cultures that I have growing.

 

   

New bottle and rigid airline tubing; as well as the porch water

 

As I did during the previous phase, I strained the porch water through a couple of paper towels (to filter out bugs, dust, etc).  Then I topped off the bottle with more 1.019 sg saltwater.

 

09/25/18:

 

Here's the culture today.  I drew Plankton on the new bottle.  It seemed only fitting.

 

[RayWhisperer]

I thought you drew a dickbutt on it.

[seabass]

Maybe for the next phase.

[seabass]

Something is going on with this culture.

 

Looks like a bloom of some kind.

 

I strained the culture and collected this.  Unsure what it is.

 

There appears to be a slight tint to it after straining.

[seabass]

10/03/18:

The bloom appears to be continuing.

 

I'm still not sure what I'm collecting in the plankton sieve (remember that this is a saltwater culture).

 

I added another 3ml of f/2 today.

[seabass]

10/06/18:

 

Looks like the culture is progressing.  However, at this point, I'm not sure what I'm culturing.  It appears to be more brown than previous cultures; maybe it's diatoms (or partially diatoms).

[RayWhisperer]

Perhaps it’s my screen, but it looks green to me. Not bright green, but green.