Who grows their own phytoplankton?

[texman]

I just bought a "plankton light reactor" by aqualine from Foster and Smith (on sale). I realize that this setup can be done much cheaper with Coke bottles, however this unit is a little easier to use, and is very well made (I might add). In any case, I plan to use either DT's as the inoculant, or the disk of N. oculata that I got from Florida Aqua Farms. If I add 1 litre of plankton every couple of days to my heavily stocked 600 gallon system, am I at risk for overfeeding the tank? Does the fertilizer which is added to the plankton culture get into the tank with the plankton themselves, or is it all sucked up into the plankton very quickly? My tank is very well skimmed and all nutrient levels are very low at this time. Has anyone noticed any difference in coral health, or sponges, clams etc. I understand that clams in farms are fed a different species of plankton.

 

[liquid]

Not sure if this helps or not, but you might try getting a copy of Frank Hoff's The Plankton Culture Manual. Excellent book for learning how to breed a lot of different food sources. Or check out Frank Marini's phytoplankton article in a previous issue of Advanced Aquarist: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/ . I believe it was last month's or the month before issue.

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

I cultured phyto for a while, and waited quite a while after setting up a culture to make sure the fertilizer had been absorbed. Look up Flame*Angel on RC- she has a nice phyto culture set-up on her web page and might have more insight.

 

[Mouse]

Those Light reactors look so cool. You know theres a kit you can buy to link them together so you can grow zoo's also. Not quite our Automated Cascading Plancktonic Feeder System, but about as close as youll get without spending £100's for a damn steriliser. And i bet that radioactive rock would have worked too, damn customs and excise. 8O

 

[reefnut1]

Hi I grow my own have been for 5 months now. I have not had any problems feeding it to my reefs. I feed every other day. All my clams, sps and other corals seem to like it. Hope this helps.

 

[Baalz]

Do they like the fertilizer too?

 

[danmhippo]

You can skip the fertilizing part if you are using aged and sterilized old tank water (please note the sterilized part, very important).

I crashed my phyto stock a couple times because I did not sterilize completely. Yes, tools used (eg. airline) need to be sterilized as well.