live phytoplankton
- Thread starter tony02133
- Start date
I have been keeping a culture of nannochloropsis and it has been really easy once i figured out the right amount of plant food for it. I keep two one gallon jugs running independent of each other in case on would crash. I have three 18"-22" fluorescent tube lights on a timer for 18 hours. A small air pump vigorously aerates both cultures. The culture is halved every week 1-1/2 to 2 weeks (the removed 1/2 is ready to use and kept in the fridge which i shake the bottle once a day) and fresh salt water refills the jug. I then add 7 drops of Schultz plant food concentrate. Every time I halve the culture I swap out the jug for one that has been thoroughly cleaned. Once set up, this maintenence takes about 20 minutes every other week to do. If you are interested in trying it, I always have extra phyto culture you could have to get started.
If its truly Live, it shouldn't raise it too much. One thing that helps is to refrigerate, and once settled out, pour off the clear water, and replace with new salt water, that will help get rid of any extra fertilizer/food (phosphate).
I don't think its tough, but it takes up some room, especially depending on how many cultures you have, and back up cultures. I just built a new cabinet to make it a little easier. I've only had a couple crashes, usually because I couldn't split the culture in time. If you don't have backups ready to go, it takes a couple weeks to get it going again. I have three different cultures now, which boils down to 6 bottles going at a time.
I don't think its tough, but it takes up some room, especially depending on how many cultures you have, and back up cultures. I just built a new cabinet to make it a little easier. I've only had a couple crashes, usually because I couldn't split the culture in time. If you don't have backups ready to go, it takes a couple weeks to get it going again. I have three different cultures now, which boils down to 6 bottles going at a time.
I use a 13w (60w eq) compact florescent, usually on the warm side, 2700k- 5000k. With the reg corkscrew type, you can run one 13w bulb for as many containers as you can circle around it. I lined my first cabinet with acrylic mirror, but don't think I will on this next one. It really doesn't take much, I ran my first test batches in 2l bottles inside a bucket with a drop light in it ( The Chum Bucket ) 
If you want some more info on culturing micro algae, check out http://www.mbisite.org/. They've got some great info on how to culture not just phyto, but rotifers and other types of fresh invertebrate food stocks. Good place to start learning how to do captive breeding on different aquaria, too.