Sediment on my Phyto Culture ???

[Pac Rat]

Hello !


I just started my new greenwater culture a few days ago. Im up to three bottles with nice green color, nice bubbles, no foam, etc. The only soda bottles I´ve found are dimpled at the bottom, so they dont get good circulation at the bottom, meaning that the bottles are acumulating a little dark green sediment. Is it bad? Should I discard it?

Thanks in advance for responding


PR

[rsman]

you said a little if its thin then no worries but if its not then its not great, either way it would be best if you can id it. if its cyno you need to restart your culture, if its just settled algae then its not the end of the world.

if you continue to use those bottles consider fliping them upside down, screw the cap on, poke 2 holes one for the stiff airline the other as an escape hole.

[Pac Rat]

Thanks for replying,

I´ll try to post a picture tomorrow of the green sediment (its the same green color of the culture), BTW, fliping the bottles upside down seems to be a great idea...


I just need a way to hold them up without knocking the bottles down!

PR

[rsman]

a hardboard frame with a bottom and a top about 8" apart, the top gets a hole drilled in it large enough for the bottle to fit, the bottom gets a bottle top nailed into it, centered on the upper hole. build it big enough for 3 or more bottles and have at it.

the best ID would be thru a microscope, if its a thin kinda "dusting" your probibly fine, cyno duplicates fast in phyto cultures

[StephenH]

I've never seen a phyto culture that didn't develop some green crud on the bottom after a few days. Its dead and dying cells which are being attacked and stuck together by bacteria.

[rsman]

some green crud isnt the end of the world, but as its nearly impossible to define some and green crud by using words that a newbie will understand, and some types of green crud are bad for cultures, its better to take the safe road and find out what it is. once the newbie knows what ok looks like then they can react when it doesnt look ok.

also if you have bacteria in your batch or semi continous culture then something is wrong either your not keeping the algae clean, or you are not cleaning enough when restarting.

[StephenH]

"Axenic culture" is a misnomer - there ain't no such thing in aquaculture. Plate out ANY algae culture and you will find bacteria, albeit some are a lot worse than others. A cloudy or milky appearance is a better gross indication of heavy bacteria contamination than the green goo in the bottom.

[Pac Rat]

Well...

Here is a close up picture of a 2 litter bottle with 3-4 day green algae culture. You can see a little sediment on the bottom. It is not much but I Just need to know if it´s ok... I´m trying to find a microscope to look at it better... it only builds up at the very bottom the rest seems to be ok... and three bottles have the same sediment...



http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/6555culture1.jpg


Could it be bacteria?


thanks again !!!

[NicoleC]

Okay, what DO you do it your suspect something else might be in your rotifer culture? I don't see many rots, but the phyto is going away like candy and the gunk is building up on the bottom faster than it should. I restarted the culture a week ago and it looks like at least a month's worth of gunk. Er, sediment. Tonight the water has a distinctly brownish tinge to it.

The only thing that has ever been in this new bucket (that I know of) is saltwater, rots and phyto. Maybe a few cat hairs.

[rsman]

most small time breeders use small very short term batches only long enough to keep in the mass growth phase(brain frozen at the moment, i cant come up with the name :D ), if any sustainable bacteria exist generally the continous part of the culture crashes, at the point the batches are restarted bacteria is removed. while the culture is not truely axenic if your culture has easy to find bacteria its gona crash, larger algae cultures are different. but off the subject.

those bottles look just fine. keep up the good work !

nicolec:
your gona have to do better than this , your gona have to give us more information. how are you looking? ill assume you dont see anything clearly taking over the culture ? a brownish tinge can be good or bad, a high density culture should look like muddy water, a medium density culture should be green ish if your feeding a green-blue algae. cat hairs are not a bad thing. what are you using as a culture tank, how thick is the gunk, do you use any filtration? im sure there are more Q's but as today became tomorrow ill come up with them later today after i get a nights sleep :D and a possible response :D

[StephenH]

I don't know how I ended up in this thread because I don't even do algae any more (just a little IA and a lot of green water). However, you are crashing Nicole. It would be nice to check it out under a scope and se if you're dealing with a something big (ciliates or rotifers) or something small (bacteria). If you don't have a back up culture, you can to try to clean up by transferring a few cells with a sterile loop to each of several dozen capped test tubes of media. If one "takes" it will begin to look like normal algae culture in a few weeks. The idea is to try to move a little algae without moving the contaminant. The numerous test tubes is to increase the chance that it works. Probably easier to just get a new starter culture from a friend or vendor. Its always a good idea to keep a small starter culture in a separate room or in the frig - just in case.

steve hopkins

[rsman]

ok after reading stephenH's reply

nicole my response only works if its a rotfier culture thats bad, not if its an algae culture thats going bad.

[NicoleC]

It's a rotifer culture.

The gunk is a greenish-brown film on the bottoms and sides. It's not even, but sort of like cottage cheese -- not anywhere near that thick, though. The container is a 5g bucket. I don't use any filtration, just an airstone.

Maybe my culture just took off like crazy this time? If so, it's too dense for me. I already dump a lot more down the sink than I feed the tank -- and the rots are apparently the wrong size for my YWG babies anyway. I'm doing a water change tonight anyway; maybe I should siphon out the gunk and thin out the culture?

[rsman]

YWG's require s-strain not l-strain

its totally possible you have a large high density culture, if so you do want to thin it, now is a good time to make a 2nd culture as a backup if you dont have one already.

that gunk is normal, not great but normal, depending on your current routine it could be time for a minor adjustment, but only because its a new culture. next time either start off with less cycsts or a smaller live batch.

remember corals eat rotifers also, but feed only rinsed rotifers.

[NicoleC]

They was supposed to be S-strain rotifers, but when I looked at them compared to the size of the fish larvae, I decided they must be L-strain. The guy I got them from doesn't raise larvae, he just uses it in his coral farm so he wouldn't have noticed the size descrepancy. The larvae only lasted 5 days.

I only started with about 2 cups of rotifers from the old batch when I restarted. Should I have started with less?

When my YWG's start spawning again (I recently moved them to a breeding tank), I will switch over to S-strain rots anyway. I am only keeping the current culture as practice to be sure I have the hang of it for when I raise babies and really need them. However, feeding rots to the main tank has really made my copepod population take off and I have a very fat and happy scooter dragonette.

Meanwhile I'm trying to get as many "backup cultures" started at other people's houses as possible :)

[Pac Rat]

RSMAN:

I noticed when making new culture sterilized water (microwave system) and followed by mixing salt... The salt had detritus that floats all over. Probably that is causing the sediment I´ve noticed in my phyto bottles. Maybe and hopefully it is not contamination or bacteria after all ! The cultures look good and seem to be in good shape..(good color and godd bubbles with no foam etc)


I´ll try to filter the water after mixing the salt using a coffee filter to take that floating detritus and impurities out of my NEW sterilized bottles.... Any better ideas?? Also I´ll try to better quality salt !

The salt brand I use is Crystals Something!


Thanks Again...