Is anyone here doing this? I am thinking about starting a culture system but wasn’t sure if anyone already does it.
I read about it here.
http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html
If anyone does have it could I obtain some to start a culture?
I have two more left DTs live phytoplankton 32oz, (unopened and refrigerated), I usually buy bunch when I go to TFP, better prices and exp.date than LFS. Let me know, you can have it for what I paid for it, I have to make a trip soon anyway.
so you can culture your own phyto with kents and liquid miracle grow? have to give it a shot.
Chris (chris_barb) has done this as well as rotifers, he actually cultured the phyto to feed the rotifers. Not sure if he’d respond here or over at reef-geeks.
He’ll respond here - he checks in over here everyday too.
I know he tried culturing phyto to feed his rotis but in the end I think they decided it just wasn’t cost effective. I could be wrong but I think that’s what I remember him saying.
I’d just be concerned with the smell in my house - I’ve yet to find phyto that doesn’t stink.
Live phyto should have a sweet ocean smell, if it stinks… its dead.
All the research I did states that anyhow…
Yes but I believe it’s like culturing rotifers - you can’t keep them all alive. It’s a matter of breeding new organisms at the same rate as your usage+die-off. Rotis only have a life span of like 18 hours and ther eis no way to sperate the live ones from the dead ones in the bucket so whatever you don’t scoop out to feed will die off in the bucket - hopefully they produce offspring before they die.
With rotifers there’s no “funk” involved - but with phyto I imagine your neighbors might start to complain.
There are benefits to adding phyto to the tank, but most critters we keep will survive, thrive, and reproduce with out any phyto added at all. I would like to culture both phyto and rotis myself in the future however the work involved is simply not worth it for 99.999% of hobbyist. At least in my experience.
[quote=“Cdangel0, post:7, topic:3524”]
Yes but I believe it’s like culturing rotifers - you can’t keep them all alive. It’s a matter of breeding new organisms at the same rate as your usage+die-off. Rotis only have a life span of like 18 hours and ther eis no way to sperate the live ones from the dead ones in the bucket so whatever you don’t scoop out to feed will die off in the bucket - hopefully they produce offspring before they die.
With rotifers there’s no “funk” involved - but with phyto I imagine your neighbors might start to complain.[/quote]
Interesting that you can purchase rotifers at many local fish stores. Undoubtedly they are over the “18 Hour” viability threshold. Curious if there is some type of preservation with refrigeration or are the companies selling dead zooplankton?
Massive debates on the word “live” on some products sold in the industry. Rotifers will slow down in the refrigerator and it is very possible some can come from “eggs” or something like that? Remember Barb talking about it, but was just long enough ago that my memory fails me of the terminology.
Refrigeration does slow down the life cycle. It can also keep eggs from hatching. Once they’re allowed to warm up the eggs will hatch, eat, lay new eggs, and die (or get fed to the tank - whichever comes first).
Wouldn’t there need to be a growth medium contained within the rotifer culture or bottle? I know certain microorganisms can become dormant for periods. Interested if the bottles I’ve seen are dosed with phytoplankton to keep the life cycle going. Or if there is even a significant percentage of living zooplankton.
I’ve been growing rotifers for a while now. It’s easy as can be, and my tanks love them too.
I started by reading Barb’s guide, and I follow it still. I’ll ask her is she is OK with me reposting it here, or you can http://www.reef-geeks.com/forums/aquaculture-breeding-geeks/219-how-grow-rotifers.html click that and read it there.
Andrew - yes there is phyto in the bottles to serve as food for the rotis. Although refrigeration will slow the life cycle they still need to eat - just not as much so the phyto will last longer. I have bottles that have been in my fridge for 6 months and still have a slight green tinge to them.
In fact you can check the healthiness of your rotifer culture by feeding the bottle and measuring how long it takes to trun light green.
Thanks for the info; I’m surprised the cultures will last that long in the fridge.
I raised rotis to feed my clown fish larvae. like Chris and barb, i bought a bottle of frozen concentrated algae paste to feed the rotis . much easier. mix 1 part paste with 2 parts RO water, shake and keep in the fridge. about 10-20 drops of that mix a day in a 3 gallon roti bucket kept them well fed. a half liter of paste lasted me 9 months.
You can raise live algae to feed corals. but its very hard to raise enough for rotis . the live culture is very thin. its a water management problem. to feed your roti bucket a liter or two of culture a day, you have to drain a liter or two out of the buck. that can be done while straining rotis to feed the tank. but now you have two live cultures to maintain. if the algae crashes, you loose the rotis too. so its lots of cleaning of algae bottles, bleaching them to keep sterile. and changing constantly. lots of busy work. the expensive paste is worth the money. and you can feed the tank with the mix too.
but you can buy starter culture from a couple places like
https://3kserver7.com/~frank/secure/agora.cgi
I got my frozen algae paste from here. and freeze dried rotifers too for tank feeding.
Chris and Barb like to buy their algae and starter kits from reed mariculture. they have a lot of products:
http://www.reed-store.com/
the overnight shipping of frozen concentrate with dry ice makes it pretty expensive though from both. but it will last a long time.
I still have a couple frozen bottles of algae paste in the freezer if anyone’s interested in trying.
I’m sure I could convince the wife to let me sell off a bottle 
About a year ago there were 6 people in the club raising Rotis and saying how easy it was. Last month asked around to find some and found out everyone of their cultures had crashed. 
Was hoping it was easy and I could get some for free/trade from someone local, but it appears it isn’t that easy and there isn’t a way to get them locally.
It’s not that it’s hard. It can just be time consuming, and when you have a job that often requires travell for a week at a time it can e tough to keep going. Mine didn’t crash I just stopped growing them. I still have a bottle in the fridge if you want to try it jon - maybe there is something viable in there.
i let mine go after i ran out of room for raising more clown fish larvae. it was still alive a few weeks after i stopped feeding the bucket or harvesting rotis. but eventually fouled up and died. you can buy a little vial of a few thousand resting rotifer cysts to restart a culture, as long as you have live algae or paste to feed them. they reproduce every 18 hours, about 20-25 per, so in a few days to a week you have a strong culture again.
or buy a 2 oz jar of their freeze dried rotifers to feed the tank. i got some of those too. works great, no fuss. just take a pinch and mix with a cup of tank water and pour in.