phyto

[Charlie Davidson]

I love clams. Is anyone raising thier own phyto? I would like to come by and see the setup. Been thinking about it for quite a while, but don't know if its worth the trouble! or if it is any?

[manderx]

if i make it to the next meeting i can bring a starter culture and some fertilizer. all you'll need is a striplight, airpump, and soda bottles.

for me, the only PITA with it is mixing the water. i've been too lazy (and don't have enough floorspace) to setup a dedicated bin for it to mix 10-20 gallons at a time. you can't use anything that's every touched tankwater for fear of contamination. one spore, cyst or critter could wipe out your whole phyto culture. the nice thing about culturing phyto is you can stick a bottle in the fridge and it keeps forever it seems. so if you want a backup culture, or just get too lazy to maintain them for a while you can stick it in the fridge and not worry about it.

from what i've heard, colleen has quite the system and is the pro at it.

[Charlie Davidson]

Have you tried rotifers? Looking at some of your forums, I see she is really into this stuff and I noticed you have a brown teardrop maxi that looks exactly like mine!

[manderx]

i still have the rotifer cysts in my fridge, i've been too lazy to keep a constant phyto culture going to think about starting them. i'm going to probably give them to colleen next time i see her.

[ade]

Ive just started my culture "Nannochloropus" and all I use is a air pump and 6 2ltr soda bottles and a gange valve to control your air.After seven days the first bottle got a dark green and I used half and the other half I placed into the next bottles and so on.All I use is a grow light from wall mart.
What I would like to know is it as good for your corals and inverts as DT's.
Ade.

[Charlie Davidson]

Rotifers are good for corals, rots eat phyto, phyto is also good for clams . I do use alot of DTs and bet that what you do is as good as DTs.

[AQUAN8TOR]

I grew my own, umm, phytoplankton that is,...for a while, and gave up for the PITA. If a culture goes bad, and it will, it smells BBAADD, and quick. Also, what DT's has over your nannochloropsis oculata is that it also has Isochrisis and Tetraselmis in the mix, which have different nutritional value. I can't remember the article name, but somewhere in the archives of the rk mag is an article about the DHA, EPA, and other fatty acids that are contained in the different species of phyto, and what organisms eat what.

The jist of the article seemed to be, to the best of my memory, that Nanno. oculata seems to be the best if you're only feeding one type of phyto.


Also, wanted to add that I used an 8 watt UV overnight on a 5 gallon bucket of saltwater that I sterilized with bleach (prior to, then dechlorinated, of course). I don't know that the UV did much, b/c I did have a culture go south. I wasn't as diligent on new mix water, though. nuked it in the microwave for a couple minutes then in the fridge it went. Big PITA if you ask me. I didn't see that much difference in most stuff. I did have a little more rapid growth of my clams, but I don't really care too much---most of them are getting too big anyway.

[cmoresps]

Hmm,

I wanted to try culturing, but to be honest did not have the time to fool with it. I read about a new product called liquid life, the stuff is phenominal, its live phyto ect (they have three formuals) but you keep it in teh freezer, it lasts forever and teh acros love it, do a search for it if you have not heard of it

[Charlie Davidson]

Were do you get yours from? One kind good for clams and one kind good for corals? I bought a large container of DTs last night at Alantis aquariums- it smells bad. they just opened 2 months ago!!!!!!

[cmoresps]

Charlie, I would definately return it, it probably got hot in transit, you dont want bad phyto in your tank. Your in luck if you want to try Liquid Life, I have 12 bottles of it, sent you pm

[manderx]

most stores don't shake the bottles every few days like they are supposed to. since it's so concentrated, when the algae settles for too long, it dies. there should be a little of a musty-tank smell to it, but nothing sharp or painfull to smell. for as much as they sell the stuff for, you'd think they would take better care of it.

culturing your own *really* isn't that hard. i've been doing it on and off for the past few years and never had one crash unless i let it sit for too long (more than 2 weeks). i don't do any of the overly-paranoid sterilazation things like microwaving the water, i just mix the saltwater in it's own bucket, that's all. if you get lazy, just stick a bottle in the fridge and it will stay alive for months and you can start back up with it when you feel like it.

the biggest reason DTs went to a 3-species mix was because too many people would buy 1 small bottle and just use it to start their own cultures. you can't culture the new mix- it will always crash. it is nice though if you do have the money to pay for it and the store you get it from takes proper care of it while it's on the shelf because filter feeders are very specific to the size of particle they can eat. the mix gives you different sizes to cover different filter feeders. though you can just get starter cultures of a couple different kinds and grow your own still. collen has at least 3 different species that she's been culturing for a while without any problems.

clams and softies will benefit from phyto, but acro does not. you need to use the phyto you grow to feed rotifers that the acros will eat.

'instant algae' seems to be popular with the breeders who need lots of phyto but don't want to culture their own anymore. i'm pretty sure it's a paste you store in the freezer.

[Charlie Davidson]

I took bottle back, she opened a few more- they all smelled bad!!!! Then she opened alllmost all of them then ---- said thanks, I do not want to sell a bad product. Seem to be good people! I still want some live rots- every 3-4 months, I believe they keep sandbed healthy.

[Charlie Davidson]

Wildthing should open a business or somebody put her to work for them- great girl! Hey, any one heard from her- mail box full- I sincerly hope things are going well for her!
Matt, I have a daugher at Tech, she is a fish nut too! Mom, was a Hokie also! dad went for 3 years to pick up women!!!!!!!!!!! ( on weekends)

[manderx]

point her to our local forum and tell her to come to a meeting.