Automating the cultivation of phytoplankton

[KelpMeOut]

Hello all, I am an engineering student and I also am into reef keeping like the rest of you. I would like to cultivate phytoplankton for my tank and I also need to go through the design process for a project so this post is for asking "consumer" (people that have experience cultivating phytoplankton or people interested) what you guys feel the machine would need to accomplish or what else might be helpful for reaching a specific criteria that you believe might be helpful or necessary. I have done my own research on the topic prior but I'm unable to add my view points in because that would be considered introducing biases (like how I specifically think things should be solved, which isn't good because someone else might have innovative ideas or different perspectives that I want to hear.) Thank you for your time.

 

[PharmrJohn]

As I know absolutely NOTHING about this topic (it's on my to do list), I shall BUMP your query.

 

[PharmrJohn]

Dude, you may just want to move this to General Reef Discussion. Or copy it over. Not sure if it'll get noted here.

 

[braaap]

Honestly I think it is impossible. I'm a novice at culturing but contamination is a huge concern. You have to sterilize between cultures. How would you accomplish this? How would you strain it and bottle it?

@Reef By Steele is the expert.

 

[BristleWormHater]

Full disclosure I do not have a phyto culture, but plan on setting up one Do I think 100% autonomy is possible, no but I is a good idea. Keep in mind cultures are not immortal and need to be restarted every few months. An automatic culture dosing machine would be very nice, but it would have to be accessible to maintaince for anything that could go wrong and for restarting the culture. Maybe something like a phytoplanktin reactor could be made. I would think it would need lights to grow the phyto and a constant supply of food.

 

[KelpMeOut]

Ok, So just to clarify. 100% autonomy is not what I'm going for, I believe it would be possible if you had a fully functional shower and did plumbing to it so you could sanitize between each culture by boiling the cultivation chamber with hot water. But like that would be extremely over the top for hobby cultivation. I'm more so asking about what would you as a consumer expect in a product that you would see as a necessity for the product to actually have value to you

 

[kvansloo]

The simplest setup for Phytoplankton cultivation only requires 2 sterilized glass jugs one for culture and one for splitting the culture. An air pump and tubing to supply oxygen to culture, lighting, culture, nutrients, sterilized saltwater and sieves to harvest the culture. oh and time once its mixed the lighting may change the timing it takes.

 

[KelpMeOut]

The simplest setup for Phytoplankton cultivation only requires 2 sterilized glass jugs one for culture and one for splitting the culture. An air pump and tubing to supply oxygen to culture, lighting, culture, nutrients, sterilized saltwater and sieves to harvest the culture. oh and time once its mixed the lighting may change the timing it takes.

Ok, what's splitting the culture for? And could you elaborate on what you meant with that last statement on lighting changing timing? Also could you explain your experience with phytoplankton?

 

[kvansloo]

I was looking into doing the Phyto culture instead of buying it, Splitting is taking what you need and then you add more sterilized saltwater to keep the culture going or you can remove it all and clean up then restart. I need half gallon every month so I would use 1 gallon glass jar and take half of it at a time or use 1 half gallon jar and just take it all at once. It takes roughly 2 weeks to cultivate some have reported brighter or stronger lighting shortens the time. I have not yet seen this for my self or tried it because I can buy the half gallon of phyto I need at this time for less than the equipment and time. Once I finish setting up my 300 gallon tank I may revisit this.

 

[deome]

Full disclosure I do not have a phyto culture, but plan on setting up one Do I think 100% autonomy is possible, no but I is a good idea. Keep in mind cultures are not immortal and need to be restarted every few months. An automatic culture dosing machine would be very nice, but it would have to be accessible to maintaince for anything that could go wrong and for restarting the culture. Maybe something like a phytoplanktin reactor could be made. I would think it would need lights to grow the phyto and a constant supply of food.

I saw a similar thread to this one a few weeks ago, and realized it would be super-easy to automate phyto on my system, so I set up a phyto colony and hooked it up to a doser. Here's what I did and my thinking behind it:

I had some empty Phytotank jars in storage, including one that used to contain a phyto culture and hadn't been cleaned since. I'm strapped for cash right now, so instead of ordering a new phyto culture, I just emptied the water out of the old one (still had some kind of phyto clinging to the glass after emptying, though the water had turned from bright green to yellow while I neglected it), added fresh salt water and F2 fertilizer, hooked it back up to air supply and power, and waited.

For those who don't know, a Phytotank is a brand name glass jar with an LED band around the middle to provide light inside the jar. The top of the jar is a rubber cap with pre-drilled holes and fittings for attaching an air line from an air pump. That's literally all phyto needs: light and oxygen. If I didn't have an old Phytotank lying around, I would have just added a light and airstone to a 5g bucket.

The old colony (literally sat on my shelf with water but no air and no power for 6 months) burst back to life within 3 or 4 days, and had turned back to dark green by day 7. I've been culturing phyto for maybe a couple years now, and my experience has been that phyto just doesn't die--not completely, and not forever--and that's still the case here.

I also take pretty much zero precautions against contamination because a glass jar is easy to clean and sterilize, and because I'm not trying to produce bags of phyto for fridge storage, commercial sales, etc.--all I want is a jar full of phyto to serve as a constant supply for everything (ie, I used it to start a second jar for culturing pods/brine shrimp). I would only recommend following sterilization/contamination practices if you have some need to guarantee purity of your culture; for home use, I don't, and since nothing enters my phyto jar except water and fertilizer, I'm not worried about something getting in the jar and somehow spoiling the whole thing.

Once I had an active phyto culture going, I just drilled another hole in the cap and hooked a rigid air tube to the inside of the jar, and connected the other end to an unused doser port. My system now doses 100ml/day of dark green phyto from my zombie culture, and other than an expected increase in nutrients, it's going great. If you don't have a doser, a clean turkey baster is fine for transferring phyto to your tank.

See below. Dark green jar is the restarted zombie colony, bright green jar is a new project to see if I can cultivate adult brine shrimp (started a few days ago with maybe 20ml of phyto from the dark green jar). I can easily see green phyto in the doser line leading from the jar to my tank. All I do for maintenance is to top off the jars with fresh water as needed, and I dose about a capful of the F2 fertilizer once a week (or less--I don't dose if the color is dark green), otherwise the system is fully automated.

If you don't know what F2 is, just search for "F2 fertilizer" on Amazon or Google. It's super cheap, lasts forever (I bought this bottle last year), and just a few milliliters will supercharge colony production. Note how much darker the jar on the right is: the darker the color, the more concentrated the culture.

Oh, and why would I want to auto-dose phyto in the first place? Well, I'm hoping that it is feeding coral and copepods in my tank, and providing a constant source of phytoplankton in the water column. My goal is always to approximate the conditions of wild coral reefs, especially by keeping and supporting species like copepods/amphipods that automate feeding of larger species like coral and fish, and all of that starts with available phytoplankton free floating in the water column.

 

[BristleWormHater]

I saw a similar thread to this one a few weeks ago, and realized it would be super-easy to automate phyto on my system, so I set up a phyto colony and hooked it up to a doser. Here's what I did and my thinking behind it:

I had some empty Phytotank jars in storage, including one that used to contain a phyto culture and hadn't been cleaned since. I'm strapped for cash right now, so instead of ordering a new phyto culture, I just emptied the water out of the old one (still had some kind of phyto clinging to the glass after emptying, though the water had turned from bright green to yellow while I neglected it), added fresh salt water and F2 fertilizer, hooked it back up to air supply and power, and waited.

For those who don't know, a Phytotank is a brand name glass jar with an LED band around the middle to provide light inside the jar. The top of the jar is a rubber cap with pre-drilled holes and fittings for attaching an air line from an air pump. That's literally all phyto needs: light and oxygen. If I didn't have an old Phytotank lying around, I would have just added a light and airstone to a 5g bucket.

The old colony (literally sat on my shelf with water but no air and no power for 6 months) burst back to life within 3 or 4 days, and had turned back to dark green by day 7. I've been culturing phyto for maybe a couple years now, and my experience has been that phyto just doesn't die--not completely, and not forever--and that's still the case here.

I also take pretty much zero precautions against contamination because a glass jar is easy to clean and sterilize, and because I'm not trying to produce bags of phyto for fridge storage, commercial sales, etc.--all I want is a jar full of phyto to serve as a constant supply for everything (ie, I used it to start a second jar for culturing pods/brine shrimp). I would only recommend following sterilization/contamination practices if you have some need to guarantee purity of your culture; for home use, I don't, and since nothing enters my phyto jar except water and fertilizer, I'm not worried about something getting in the jar and somehow spoiling the whole thing.

Once I had an active phyto culture going, I just drilled another hole in the cap and hooked a rigid air tube to the inside of the jar, and connected the other end to an unused doser port. My system now doses 100ml/day of dark green phyto from my zombie culture, and other than an expected increase in nutrients, it's going great. If you don't have a doser, a clean turkey baster is fine for transferring phyto to your tank.

See below. Dark green jar is the restarted zombie colony, bright green jar is a new project to see if I can cultivate adult brine shrimp (started a few days ago with maybe 20ml of phyto from the dark green jar). I can easily see green phyto in the doser line leading from the jar to my tank. All I do for maintenance is to top off the jars with fresh water as needed, and I dose about a capful of the F2 fertilizer once a week (or less--I don't dose if the color is dark green), otherwise the system is fully automated.

If you don't know what F2 is, just search for "F2 fertilizer" on Amazon or Google. It's super cheap, lasts forever (I bought this bottle last year), and just a few milliliters will supercharge colony production. Note how much darker the jar on the right is: the darker the color, the more concentrated the culture.

Oh, and why would I want to auto-dose phyto in the first place? Well, I'm hoping that it is feeding coral and copepods in my tank, and providing a constant source of phytoplankton in the water column. My goal is always to approximate the conditions of wild coral reefs, especially by keeping and supporting species like copepods/amphipods that automate feeding of larger species like coral and fish, and all of that starts with available phytoplankton free floating in the water column.

Very nice, good job. Off topic, but have you tried culturing zooplanktin yet? It's hard to find info on, just wondering if you've done it.

 

[deome]

Very nice, good job. Off topic, but have you tried culturing zooplanktin yet? It's hard to find info on, just wondering if you've done it.

Respectfully, what would be the purpose in adding microscopic or even macroscopic zooplankton? I always have a purpose in mind when I add anything to my tanks, and I'm wondering what benefit there would be to having anything microscopic that feeds on phytoplankton. IE, I would welcome a lot of macroscopic critters like mollusks and arthropods because I honestly love watching critters that can dance on the head of a pin, but if critters are microscopic then their only benefit to me is some improvement in water chemistry or feeding some super-picky-eater that won't eat the phyto I dose.

The more I research support-role life, like phyto and copepods/amphipods, the more I wonder why beneficial hitchhikers aren't bred and sold like everything else we want in our tanks. I know "hitchhiker" means that they're already getting in our tanks from un-dipped un-quarantined frags and fishies--and I would expect this is how most zooplankton like bristle worms (nightmare fuel, I sure didn't add or ask for them) get in the tank. But I would love to order things like brittle stars or asterina, and basically everything in the "beneficial or neutral" hitchhiker list. Maybe I'll get into breeding those things at some point; breeding/culturing/growing programs seems to be the direction I'm headed in this hobby.

Also, I think the short answer to your question is that "zooplankton" is a pretty expansive term, even if you split it into macro- and microscopic fields.

 

[KelpMeOut]

Respectfully, what would be the purpose in adding microscopic or even macroscopic zooplankton? I always have a purpose in mind when I add anything to my tanks, and I'm wondering what benefit there would be to having anything microscopic that feeds on phytoplankton. IE, I would welcome a lot of macroscopic critters like mollusks and arthropods because I honestly love watching critters that can dance on the head of a pin, but if critters are microscopic then their only benefit to me is some improvement in water chemistry or feeding some super-picky-eater that won't eat the phyto I dose.

The more I research support-role life, like phyto and copepods/amphipods, the more I wonder why beneficial hitchhikers aren't bred and sold like everything else we want in our tanks. I know "hitchhiker" means that they're already getting in our tanks from un-dipped un-quarantined frags and fishies--and I would expect this is how most zooplankton like bristle worms (nightmare fuel, I sure didn't add or ask for them) get in the tank. But I would love to order things like brittle stars or asterina, and basically everything in the "beneficial or neutral" hitchhiker list. Maybe I'll get into breeding those things at some point; breeding/culturing/growing programs seems to be the direction I'm headed in this hobby.

Also, I think the short answer to your question is that "zooplankton" is a pretty expansive term, even if you split it into macro- and microscopic fields.

You've added a lot of helpful insight ty, just wondering. If you were looking for a product for automating phyto culturing what would be the most drawing features to you?

 

[deome]

You've added a lot of helpful insight ty, just wondering. If you were looking for a product for automating phyto culturing what would be the most drawing features to you?

Easy to clean? It's really so simple that all you need is a bucket or mason jar, light, and airstone/pump. Even my Phytotanks are just expensive versions of those three things (again, if you're selling/transferring, you probably want a bit more setup to prevent contamination, but even then I still don't see the point until you reach commercial scale and people's jobs are on the line). I'm not spending money on phytotanks again; if I need more jars, I'll go to the dollar store and buy 1g/2g mason jars, and rubber pipe caps and LED strips from Home Depot; that's really all the phytotanks are.

When I first started culturing copepods and phyto, I bought some stacking beverage dispensers (with a spout, like you see on coffee pots or gatorade at a PTA meeting), and put them all under one big grow light, but that was a bit of a messy hassle to un-stack them when I needed to open the top to add water/etc, and the spouts rusted pretty quickly (and here I thought they were all plastic).

Okay, on further reflection, I would like something like my phytotanks, but with a built in air pump so I don't have to run airline tubing everywhere. I *really* hate any type of cord.

Maybe also something like my phytotanks, but with a non-rusting spout (I stopped using beverage dispensers because 99.9% are designed to hold pretty much any liquid other than corrosive salt water--that's a huge limitation in this hobby). I wouldn't need a spout for auto-dosing phyto though, but they're fairly useful for getting copepods out of the jar and into a cup/sieve. At one point last year I drilled a bulkhead into a 5g glass tank, added a ball valve for a spout, and it worked until I bumped the spout and it cracked the glass around the bulkhead. I could try again when I'm feeling squirrely, maybe buy some acrylic at Home Depot and assemble a little 5g tank... (I don't think acrylic will crack if it gets bumped. I have, however, destroyed two 5g and one 40g tank by putting too much pressure on the bulkhead, so I'm not in a rush to test this).

 

[KelpMeOut]

Easy to clean? It's really so simple that all you need is a bucket or mason jar, light, and airstone/pump. Even my Phytotanks are just expensive versions of those three things (again, if you're selling/transferring, you probably want a bit more setup to prevent contamination, but even then I still don't see the point until you reach commercial scale and people's jobs are on the line). I'm not spending money on phytotanks again; if I need more jars, I'll go to the dollar store and buy 1g/2g mason jars, and rubber pipe caps and LED strips from Home Depot; that's really all the phytotanks are.

When I first started culturing copepods and phyto, I bought some stacking beverage dispensers (with a spout, like you see on coffee pots or gatorade at a PTA meeting), and put them all under one big grow light, but that was a bit of a messy hassle to un-stack them when I needed to open the top to add water/etc, and the spouts rusted pretty quickly (and here I thought they were all plastic).

Okay, on further reflection, I would like something like my phytotanks, but with a built in air pump so I don't have to run airline tubing everywhere. I *really* hate any type of cord.

Maybe also something like my phytotanks, but with a non-rusting spout (I stopped using beverage dispensers because 99.9% are designed to hold pretty much any liquid other than corrosive salt water--that's a huge limitation in this hobby). I wouldn't need a spout for auto-dosing phyto though, but they're fairly useful for getting copepods out of the jar and into a cup/sieve. At one point last year I drilled a bulkhead into a 5g glass tank, added a ball valve for a spout, and it worked until I bumped the spout and it cracked the glass around the bulkhead. I could try again when I'm feeling squirrely, maybe buy some acrylic at Home Depot and assemble a little 5g tank... (I don't think acrylic will crack if it gets bumped. I have, however, destroyed two 5g and one 40g tank by putting too much pressure on the bulkhead, so I'm not in a rush to test this).

Ok, awesome. ty doing this for a project

 

[BristleWormHater]

Respectfully, what would be the purpose in adding microscopic or even macroscopic zooplankton? I always have a purpose in mind when I add anything to my tanks, and I'm wondering what benefit there would be to having anything microscopic that feeds on phytoplankton. IE, I would welcome a lot of macroscopic critters like mollusks and arthropods because I honestly love watching critters that can dance on the head of a pin, but if critters are microscopic then their only benefit to me is some improvement in water chemistry or feeding some super-picky-eater that won't eat the phyto I dose.

The more I research support-role life, like phyto and copepods/amphipods, the more I wonder why beneficial hitchhikers aren't bred and sold like everything else we want in our tanks. I know "hitchhiker" means that they're already getting in our tanks from un-dipped un-quarantined frags and fishies--and I would expect this is how most zooplankton like bristle worms (nightmare fuel, I sure didn't add or ask for them) get in the tank. But I would love to order things like brittle stars or asterina, and basically everything in the "beneficial or neutral" hitchhiker list. Maybe I'll get into breeding those things at some point; breeding/culturing/growing programs seems to be the direction I'm headed in this hobby.

Also, I think the short answer to your question is that "zooplankton" is a pretty expansive term, even if you split it into macro- and microscopic fields.

You are correct zooplanktin is a very expansive term and that's the point. Zooplanktin and phytoplanktin are both terms that refer to the food chain and encompass thousands of species. Phyto is a group of microalgaes that zooplanktin feeds on. The copepods and amphipods we keep in our tanks are zooplanktin. So a copepod culture is a zooplanktin culture, but when I say zooplankton culture I mean multiple species of all kinds of pods.

 

[strich]

@deome - That's a great setup thanks for sharing. One thing I've always wanted to start a project on is a set of phyto, copepod, rotifer & bbs reactors as close to a single unit and connected to the tank for automation as you've done already. The idea being that within these reactors is a safe haven for each type which can feed into the tank or into other breeding projects. The phyto reactor would auto-feed the 3 other reactors as well.

I'm glad to hear that, generally, culture crashes aren't often catastrophic.

 

[Panicked Reefer]

Hello all, I am an engineering student and I also am into reef keeping like the rest of you. I would like to cultivate phytoplankton for my tank and I also need to go through the design process for a project so this post is for asking "consumer" (people that have experience cultivating phytoplankton or people interested) what you guys feel the machine would need to accomplish or what else might be helpful for reaching a specific criteria that you believe might be helpful or necessary. I have done my own research on the topic prior but I'm unable to add my view points in because that would be considered introducing biases (like how I specifically think things should be solved, which isn't good because someone else might have innovative ideas or different perspectives that I want to hear.) Thank you for your time.

My .02
1: The design needs to be scalable. A jam packed 220g will use way more than a bio cube with a few frags in it.
2: The design needs to be easily cleaned. People won't do it if it takes the whole day to do. Specifically, the tubing. I would explore larger diameter tubing that would be easier to clean.
3: The design would greatly benefit being able to culture 3-6 strains simultaneously. I imagine this could be done by making it modular.
4: The design needs to be climate controlled.
5: Think compatibility with aquarium controllers. I believe this would be a major plus.
6: Consider offering/partnering with a service that users can mail samples in to check the viability of their harvest.

 

[deome]

You are correct zooplanktin is a very expansive term and that's the point. Zooplanktin and phytoplanktin are both terms that refer to the food chain and encompass thousands of species. Phyto is a group of microalgaes that zooplanktin feeds on. The copepods and amphipods we keep in our tanks are zooplanktin. So a copepod culture is a zooplanktin culture, but when I say zooplankton culture I mean multiple species of all kinds of pods.

Ah, thank you. In that case, I would assert the following:

1) Diversity of zooplankton is generally good, overall, and to be desired in our tanks
2) Culturing a diverse population of zooplankton is going to be highly dependent on a specific need for one's tank, and may be a waste of time/resources if one doesn't have a specific need for specific cultures.

So, I mentioned I started an artemia/brine fish phyto tank as a little project. Two weeks later, I have adult artemia that are growing and breeding a little sea monkey paradise, and their purpose is just to provide a source of moving food for my fish. That's it--I'm not gut-loading artemia to deliver more nutrients to my fish, it's just a once-a-week or so treat for my fish.

Likewise, I would only go to the trouble of culturing copepods (especially culturing separate varieties in sterile or clinical conditions) outside the ones living in my tank already IF I felt like getting something like a Mandarin that more or less demand feedings of thousands of copepods on a regular schedule. You can culture any combination of zooplankton separate from your tank and even dose them daily or weekly or whatever, but if they're not fulfilling a specific need, you're just dropping more food/nutrients into the system without addressing a specific problem. However, by dosing phyto, it looks like I'm dumping food/nutrients into the system, but doing so appears to be benefitting my zooplankton and corals (seriously, my copepods are *everywhere* in thick numbers. I can spend an hour sometimes just watching them run around my frag tank, where the only predator is coral).

So that's my opinion on culturing specific zooplankton: good for breeding fish or feeding picky eaters, good for experiments and projects, otherwise a bit of a waste to just be adding zooplankton to the tank every day (above the tank's carrying capacity for your added zooplankton varieties). I would only add specific cultures of zooplankton if I wanted to make sure I had that particular variety populating my tank.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Hello all, I am an engineering student and I also am into reef keeping like the rest of you. I would like to cultivate phytoplankton for my tank and I also need to go through the design process for a project so this post is for asking "consumer" (people that have experience cultivating phytoplankton or people interested) what you guys feel the machine would need to accomplish or what else might be helpful for reaching a specific criteria that you believe might be helpful or necessary. I have done my own research on the topic prior but I'm unable to add my view points in because that would be considered introducing biases (like how I specifically think things should be solved, which isn't good because someone else might have innovative ideas or different perspectives that I want to hear.) Thank you for your time.

Have you looked at this article yet?