Phytoplankton and Copepod Culture.

[meanduck124]

How can I start a culture if I can't access to live phytoplankton?
Is there any commercial product that can help? 
Thanks.

[Murphs_Reef]

I'm going to hook onto this thread so not to create a duplicate. 

I'm looking to create 3 separate sets of cultures in my summerhouse if phytoplankton, copepods and rotifers. This is due to expense of weekly buying in, I have any animals which feed heavily in pods and the frozen rotifers I feed the tank are quite expensive as well. 

 

I'm looking for some guidance in feeding these cultures. I "think" that once I have a good volume o can use some of the phytoplankton to feed the copepods and rotifers.

If that's the case great. I wonder how I sustain the phytoplankton or rather is this the one I would have to purchase regularly? 

 

I will be using 3 large plastic jars, a spare planted tank light and an AquaOne air pump to oxygenate the water in each jar.

 

In terms of water, do I use RO or salt mixed at the same salinity as my tank also. 

 

Any help would be great as my experience in this area is non-existent. 

[Ratvan]

for the Phyto plankton, I use a plastic storage container (no lid) fill it was the old water from a water change and get it started with either Spirulina powder (£1.99 at Aldi) or a section of banana peel. Loosely fit a lid to it (mainly to stop spiders and twigs getting in) and let the water turn green.

 

I then add the Pods and Rotifers to this water, but i suppose you could go the additional step of using another container to house the copepods and rotifers and add the water to these as food, i just add a small amount of spirulina to the water to keep the cultures going.

 

A lid is useful to stop wildlife and dogs drinking it also

[Murphs_Reef]

Do you just top off water as you need to or do some kind of change / parameters... Or do N and P not matter? 

[Ratvan]

35 minutes ago, Murphych said:

Do you just top off water as you need to or do some kind of change / parameters... Or do N and P not matter? 

Very rarely top off. the only time i have done is when i've forgotten to put the lid on and its rained. 

Only thing i worry about is keeping the culture fed

[Murphs_Reef]

Excellent thanks mate. Ill go about ordering some bits tomorrow

[seabass]

I just edited my article on cuturing phyto:

It's easy to do and doesn't require a lot of space or equipment.

 

Culturing rotifers isn't much harder.  I strain the rotifers out of the culture with a 53 micron plankton sieve (available from Amazon), and release them into an open two gallon food container (filled with about a gallon of diluted phyto water).  All they require is light and an airline.  For a light, I use a standard home 75W equivalent LED bulb (daylight spectrum).

 

When the water starts to get pale (after about a week), I usually harvest the rotifers by straining the culture through the 53 micron sieve.  There will be some muck on the bottom of the container, so I usually don't pour that through the strainer.  Keep the culture going by placing some of the harvested rotifers into a clean diluted culture of phyto.  You can also just dip the sieve directly into the culture to scoop up some rotifers.

[Ratvan]

Here is my mean green cultivating machine

 

obviously a lid helps keep out all the muck, or sieve it once to remove the detritus and once again to harvest

[Murphs_Reef]

Some amazing info here gents thanks a lot. I'm going to set up shop in the summerhouse tomorrow. God knows it's been 2 weeks since I last went to a LFS and the cash is burning a hole in my pocket 🤣🤣

[Murphs_Reef]

Only ended up getting 3 bags if pods and RO. To hot to go shopping...next time!!

[meanduck124]

On 7/16/2021 at 3:46 PM, Ratvan said:

Spirulina powder (£1.99 at Aldi) or a section of banana peel.

Wait, can you be more specific about this, how do I start a plankton culture from this?
Many thanks.

[Ratvan]

49 minutes ago, meanduck124 said:

Wait, can you be more specific about this, how do I start a plankton culture from this?
Many thanks.

Ok, so what i do is take a bucket/container and fill with old tank water 

throw in a small section of banana peel (2cm x 2cm) and wait for the water to turn green, its not exactly phytoplankton but more of a green water.

i then add a single bag of pods for my LFS (i think they are 30ml) and leave it all outside. 

I leave it roughly 2-3 weeks for a population explosion and can then start harvesting the pods

i feel the pod culture once a month or when i notice it start to stall with spirulina powder. 

 

I think that you could most likely do the same with spirulina powder from the start but I think that temperatures need to be higher for it to be a maintainable culture

[meanduck124]

1 hour ago, Ratvan said:

1 hour ago, Ratvan said:

its not exactly phytoplankton but more of a green water.

 

Oh I thought we can get phytoplankton from spirulina since I read that they are cyanobacteria. So there are no other ways or products that can help me start a new culture? 😞

[seabass]

1 hour ago, meanduck124 said:

So there are no other ways or products that can help me start a new culture?

You can start a phyto culture with small sample of live phyto.  I even created a culture out of nothing:

But I suggest using any live phyto product to start your phyto culture.  It's arguable that culturing pods might be even easier as, like Ratvan mentioned, you can culture them with powdered spirulina versus using a live phyto culture.

[meanduck124]

4 hours ago, seabass said:

You can start a phyto culture with small sample of live phyto.  I even created a culture out of nothing:

But I suggest using any live phyto product to start your phyto culture.  It's arguable that culturing pods might be even easier as, like Ratvan mentioned, you can culture them with powdered spirulina versus using a live phyto culture.

I've read your post and realize my country don't have your fertilizers so maybe it's impossible for me to culture phytoplankton 😞 copepods maybe if they can be fed spirulina.

 

[NanoGrant]

Jumping in on this thread as there’s good info in here and to avoid creating another. 
 

I’ve set up this 3G tank with a plan of keeping it as a sustainable culture. I really don’t want to have to keep restarting the whole culture periodically. To combat ammonia, nitrate and to an extent nitrate, I added some maxspect bio-spheres then popped an air stone in and finished off with a cheap LED light. 
 

It’s been running for 6 weeks now and I’m pulling a small serve full of pods out every second day, think I could get away with daily though. 
 

I’m dosing it with store bought phyto but I’ve also thrown a bit of banana peel in there since the below photos as a bit of extra food source. 
 

What does everyone think? Will this work long term?

 

 

 

[seabass]

On 3/12/2022 at 3:21 PM, NanoGrant said:

What does everyone think? Will this work long term?

I don't know.  Your method will take some maintenance, as (I feel) bio-media will only get you so far.  However, there are many ways to raise pods, just like there are many ways to keep reef tanks.  I suspect that it might crash someday, but don't let that get you down.  Just learn from that failure and move forward.

 

My rotifer culture is years old.  I've modified my method since my first attempt; and now I know what works for me.  My method is fairly forgiving and takes relatively little time and effort.   You might need to tweak your method a few times to finally get it down pat.

[NanoGrant]

On 3/14/2022 at 4:16 AM, seabass said:

I don't know.  Your method will take some maintenance, as (I feel) bio-media will only get you so far.  However, there are many ways to raise pods, just like there are many ways to keep reef tanks.  I suspect that it might crash someday, but don't let that get you down.  Just learn from that failure and move forward.

 

My rotifer culture is years old.  I've modified my method since my first attempt; and now I know what works for me.  My method is fairly forgiving and takes relatively little time and effort.   You might need to tweak your method a few times to finally get it down pat.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Riona]

Really ridiculous tagalong question 

 

When I get to the point that I can dose phyto for coral/pods/inverts in my rock, would I be able to use the green water from this sort of culture (along with the pods, of course) for it, or would that just create an algae bloom from he** in my tank?  I've been thinking about culturing phyto, but there's no way I'd be able to go through enough to keep a culture alive in my little tank, and there aren't any other reefers near me to sell excess to.  

[seabass]

9 hours ago, Riona said:

Really ridiculous tagalong question 

 

When I get to the point that I can dose phyto for coral/pods/inverts in my rock, would I be able to use the green water from this sort of culture (along with the pods, of course) for it, or would that just create an algae bloom from he** in my tank?  I've been thinking about culturing phyto, but there's no way I'd be able to go through enough to keep a culture alive in my little tank, and there aren't any other reefers near me to sell excess to.  

I have dumped enough phyto into my tanks to tint the water green; but I've yet to experience a phyto bloom.  I imagine that you'd need a suitable environment (high nutrient levels) for a bloom to happen.

 

You could use smaller bottles if you don't need a lot of phyto.  A drinking water bottle would be sufficient for a phyto culture.  If that's still too much, you don't need to fill it to the top, or just pour out any excess.

[Riona]

Or pour most of a drinking bottle into a pod culture tank, and dose a bit in the main.  Thank you!

 

My last reef had a really nasty pea-soup algae bloom that I couldn't get rid of despite doing 95% water changes twice a week for a couple months.  I'm assuming something had died in the tank, but by the time I broke down and got a UV steriliser, everything had stressed to death.  I'm afraid of managing to cause that sort of mess again.