Culturing
- Thread starter 09bumblebee
- Start date
How many splits have you done? Phyto is very labor intensive once you get rolling with it. The hardest part is avoiding a crash and trust me, it will happen. You have to be 100% sterile all the time, every time you do anything with the cultures. Even contaminants in the air can cause a crash. You need to bleach EVERYTHING that comes in contact with the setup. I wish you the best. Culturing phytoplankton is not easy even though it may seem so at first. I got up to the point of culturing 8 bottles at a time and got so frustrated with crashes I quit.
Also, not sure what your intending to feed but nannochloropsis has a very very limited amount of lifeforms in our systems that will consume it. Yes, it is very nutritious but almost no planktonvores can eat it because it has a very tough cell wall which most filter feeders cannot penetrate. If your intention is to feed zooplankton then you are, hate to say it, your wasting your time. The best phytoplankton you can culture for pods is probably isochrysis which is also one of the most difficult planktons to culture. Tetra is also good but also has a more limited audience.
Rotifers are easy. Feed daily, do water changes and split. They do not crash easy and multiply like crazy.
I will say this. Eventually your going to want to ditch the 2 liter bottle method and I would recommend glass jars with lids - Ball makes a good jar for culturing, just make sure to get the plastic lids. I personally got sick of drinking soda and couldn't keep up! But like I said I was doing 8 bottles a week and you dont want to reuse the same 2 liters, that will lead to crashes sooner.
Anyways if you have any questions let me know, I cultured for a while and did some pretty heavy research while doing it. Zooid also knows his stuff when it comes to culturing
Also, not sure what your intending to feed but nannochloropsis has a very very limited amount of lifeforms in our systems that will consume it. Yes, it is very nutritious but almost no planktonvores can eat it because it has a very tough cell wall which most filter feeders cannot penetrate. If your intention is to feed zooplankton then you are, hate to say it, your wasting your time. The best phytoplankton you can culture for pods is probably isochrysis which is also one of the most difficult planktons to culture. Tetra is also good but also has a more limited audience.
Rotifers are easy. Feed daily, do water changes and split. They do not crash easy and multiply like crazy.
I will say this. Eventually your going to want to ditch the 2 liter bottle method and I would recommend glass jars with lids - Ball makes a good jar for culturing, just make sure to get the plastic lids. I personally got sick of drinking soda and couldn't keep up! But like I said I was doing 8 bottles a week and you dont want to reuse the same 2 liters, that will lead to crashes sooner.
Anyways if you have any questions let me know, I cultured for a while and did some pretty heavy research while doing it. Zooid also knows his stuff when it comes to culturing
I do bleach between cultures and just replace tubing to avoid crashing. I'm on 9 this weekend will be 10. Knock on wood I've been successful so far. mainly started for Rotifers I did a lot of research myself but still have a lot to learn with it. I have lots of 2 liters moving to 1 gallon next though. Well see how it goes.
I say phyto is labor intensive because you have to clean something on a daily basis in order to maintain a viable culture.
I was taking about an hour a day just cleaning jars, lids, airtube and airlines. Kris is right about the crashes. I was having
so many crashes that it just became monotonous cleaning crashed cultures. And after a crash it was worse because you have
to be extemely anal about sterilizing everything that came into contact with that culture.
Rotifers aren't that labor intensive to me. I feed them, harvest if I need to, and that's about it. Sometimes I don't even harvest
for a week. I just feed them twice a day which consists of five drops of RotiGrow+ for each half gallon container at each feeding.
I've had this batch of rotifers culturing for a few months. My previous batch I kept going for about two years until I decided to stop.
Thankfully, Key's Island has live rotifers now so I just bought some and restarted. Rotifers are very hearty little guys. As long as you
don't overfeed or let them starve they will last a LONG time.
I was taking about an hour a day just cleaning jars, lids, airtube and airlines. Kris is right about the crashes. I was having
so many crashes that it just became monotonous cleaning crashed cultures. And after a crash it was worse because you have
to be extemely anal about sterilizing everything that came into contact with that culture.
Rotifers aren't that labor intensive to me. I feed them, harvest if I need to, and that's about it. Sometimes I don't even harvest
for a week. I just feed them twice a day which consists of five drops of RotiGrow+ for each half gallon container at each feeding.
I've had this batch of rotifers culturing for a few months. My previous batch I kept going for about two years until I decided to stop.
Thankfully, Key's Island has live rotifers now so I just bought some and restarted. Rotifers are very hearty little guys. As long as you
don't overfeed or let them starve they will last a LONG time.