Another phytoplankton culture topic (grotech phytobreeder)

[NL.Reefer]

Hello everyone, soo i started culturing phyto plankton a few months ago. I started with culturing tetraselmis and synechococcus. everytime the first 2 batches went good and then the culture crashes.

Here a pic from the setup 1month ago. (The left jar is my copepods culture)

first i harvest 10% everyday and add new mixed water but my culture was crashing very fast. Now i harvest 30% and add new mixed water and wait a few days till the culture is ready again to harvest but after like 2 batches the cultures crashing

this is how it looks now.

Not really important but i add a extra copepod jar becouse the culture went big and now i have 2 cultures in case 1 is crashing. On the right i harvest brine shrimp and try to raise them to adults.

at this moment i only grow synnechochoccus in the jar and i wanne grow the Nannochloropsis in the grotech phytobreeder.

It says i should be able to harvest till 30% daily with the phytobreeder but isnt the change big that the culture crashes if i harvest daily? Or can i just better harvest 50% and wait few days till culture is ready again to harvest

I already have the starting at home, is there anyone with experience with the phytobreeder from grotech? Would really appreciate any tips

 

[Subsea]

With respect to culture crashing after second harvest, you need to review your sterilization protocol and see where cross contamination is coming from.

I get my phytoplankton from Mercer of Montana. Following their directions, I dilute 50/50 and it is very much darker than your harvest. For Tetraselmi, the optimum temperature is 79 degrees with 7 days to double density. Initially, I harvested half every 7 days and refill with aquarium water that has been boiled for 10 minutes then I add 1ml of Guillard f2 fertilizer for each liter of phytoplankton culture. I am considering harvest 25% every 3 days.

I suggest you not dilute your phyto concentrate more than 50/50. In my experience, a less dense culture is easier to cross contaminate.

The picture was taken after second harvest of more than 2G, I already diluted culture on front right and am waiting on boiled aquarium water to cool, then I will dilute 50/50.

 

[NL.Reefer]

Okee good thank you for the advice!

i think i just stick with the 30% harvest and will take better look at how i sterilise everything

 

[Eatfrenchfries]

Where did you source your synechococcus?

 

[Jason Kelsey]

With respect to culture crashing after second harvest, you need to review your sterilization protocol and see where cross contamination is coming from.

I get my phytoplankton from Mercer of Montana. Following their directions, I dilute 50/50 and it is very much darker than your harvest. For Tetraselmi, the optimum temperature is 79 degrees with 7 days to double density. Initially, I harvested half every 7 days and refill with aquarium water that has been boiled for 10 minutes then I add 1ml of Guillard f2 fertilizer for each liter of phytoplankton culture. I am considering harvest 25% every 3 days.

I suggest you not dilute your phyto concentrate more than 50/50. In my experience, a less dense culture is easier to cross contaminate.

The picture was taken after second harvest of more than 2G, I already diluted culture on front right and am waiting on boiled aquarium water to cool, then I will dilute 50/50.

I agree with not diluting too much. My cultures seem to stay strong and resistant to minor contaminants when the culture is dense, but when its thinned out too much, it almost always crashes. I would harvest less. You would be surprised at just how dense they can get. At one point, my nanno was so dense in a clear 2-liter old pepsi bottle that I could hold it up to a light bulb and almost no light would pass through. And never never mix cultures. Once I had about 9 2-liters going at once and thought that I could just split one up into the rest cause I didnt want to throw it out. (it was looking a little off) Needless to say, whatever it was that contaminated the one, killed em all. Lots of hard work and patience.

 

[KTTX]

With respect to culture crashing after second harvest, you need to review your sterilization protocol and see where cross contamination is coming from.

I get my phytoplankton from Mercer of Montana. Following their directions, I dilute 50/50 and it is very much darker than your harvest. For Tetraselmi, the optimum temperature is 79 degrees with 7 days to double density. Initially, I harvested half every 7 days and refill with aquarium water that has been boiled for 10 minutes then I add 1ml of Guillard f2 fertilizer for each liter of phytoplankton culture. I am considering harvest 25% every 3 days.

I suggest you not dilute your phyto concentrate more than 50/50. In my experience, a less dense culture is easier to cross contaminate.

The picture was taken after second harvest of more than 2G, I already diluted culture on front right and am waiting on boiled aquarium water to cool, then I will dilute 50/50.

Hi, why boiled aquarium water?

 

[Subsea]

Hi, why boiled aquarium water?

I was doing research on continuous phyto culture in a reef tank. The idea of introducing nutrients from mature system constant drip into culture vessel with constant overflow from culture vessel into the sump below display intrigued me. If this were to work, then no zooplankton, consumers of phyto, in bulk water could be allowed into culture vessel. I intended to use a uv sterilizer to eliminate contaminates to culture. At the time of the phyto experiment, I didn’t have a powerful uv sterilizer so I boiled the aquarium water to sterilize it.

Since I wrote that post, I now have an outside 30G continuous harvest of wild phytoplankton. Every other day, I harvest 3G of phyto and add 3G from mature 120G display to replace photo removed. I continue to add f/2 fertilizer.