Continuous phytoplankton|rotifers reactor 24h food supply

[Scrubber_steve]

Hi sixty reefer, fantastic stuff & thanx for sharing.
In regards to the rotifers in the aquarium, are they procreating at all, perhaps in the fuge?

Cheers



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[sixty_reefer]

Hi sixty reefer, fantastic stuff & thanx for sharing.
In regards to the rotifers in the aquarium, are they procreating at all, perhaps in the fuge?

Cheers



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Copepod, amphipods, spaghetti worms, krill etc.. are reproducing in high numbers in the refugium and display, the rotifers itself they get consumed too fast in the reef before they have a chance to reproduce that’s why I had to do a culture just for them just to make sure there is enough going around

 

[Scrubber_steve]

Copepod, amphipods, spaghetti worms, krill etc.. are reproducing in high numbers in the refugium and display, the rotifers itself they get consumed too fast in the reef before they have a chance to reproduce that’s why I had to do a culture just for them just to make sure there is enough going around

Why are the Copepods & amphipods able to maintain a population but not the rotifers? They all get eaten ?

Cheers


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[sixty_reefer]

Why are the Copepods & amphipods able to maintain a population but not the rotifers? They all get eaten ?

Cheers


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Copepods and amphipods live on the substrate, so not always in reach of corals and fish, in other hand rotifers are drifters living in the water column as soon as they get pass a coral tentacle or a vermitid snail web they get coughed and eaten straight away. Does it make sense?

 

[Scrubber_steve]

Copepods and amphipods live on the substrate, so not always in reach of corals and fish, in other hand rotifers are drifters living in the water column as soon as they get pass a coral tentacle or a vermitid snail web they get coughed and eaten straight away. Does it make sense?

Yes, but thought they'd be safe in the fuge

 

[sixty_reefer]

Yes, but thought they'd be safe in the fuge

as soon as they fall in to the tank they keep drifting in the tank and fortunately get eaten, my first experience was just feed phytoplankton to the tank and every couple weeks throw in 100ml of rotifers from bay and hope they would reproduce in the tank, unfortunately it never worked for me that way.

 

[sixty_reefer]

New life in the tank

 

[sixty_reefer]

Sample taken today from the rotifers culture this has been working a treat and is definitely possible to keep a continuous culture using the phytoplankton reactor concept along side.



15ml sample taken just now and there is a good amount of them in der. The dead left over phytoplankton in the sample will work a treat for the pods in the tank

 

[Wrasse-cal]

This was something I tough in sharing, never in a million years I tough anyone would be interested in mimic, would it be best if I try and do a complete write up showing how to build the reactors and maybe a way to implement it?

I will do some more detailed and organised writing over the holidays as I will have a bit of time

I'd be curious to see your write up.

@Reef Nutrition would probably find this interesting too!

 

[sixty_reefer]

I'd be curious to see your write up.

@Reef Nutrition would probably find this interesting too!

Unfortunately I didn’t had a chance to do so, and am afraid that all I will be able to do is a simple write up showing how to build, but am afraid I can write how it works and the method behind, mainly my knowledge isn’t big enough to explain it. How can I explain how my consumption of calcium and kh dropped since I’ve started the experience? For example: My tank used to consume about 70ml daily of calcium and 65ml of kh. Today I have more coral than before (around 30 sps and 10 medium lps) and my daily consumption is only 14ml of kh and 15ml of calcium. Is really hard for a simple hobbyists like me to explain something like that I do have an idea of what’s happening but is putting that to words that every one understands that I struggle.

Growth is der so the coral must be using the live food to get most of what they need to grow. As an example I bought a mystic frag 4 months ago

Today I had to move it as she was getting to close from another coral that’s the size

Nearly 5x bigger than wend I first added to the tank

If you know of someone that is good with reefing articles send it my way, would be nice to do a collaboration and write a full review with dos and don’t do that anyone that would like to mimic this, could do so without putting the tank at risk and do it in a knowledge way.

 

[Wrasse-cal]

What size containers are you using for the phyto and rotifer cultures?

 

[sixty_reefer]

What size containers are you using for the phyto and rotifer cultures?

Am using 1,5l bottles as per ruff diagram

 

[Jacked Reefer]

They called me crazy! 24 hour phyto supply “it’ll never happen” they said. But you’ve done it! Lemme go grab a link to the thread.
Edit: found it! https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/phytoplankton-fuge.523641/#post-5465250
Your concept is a bit different than mine but same concept.

 

[sixty_reefer]

The way it works is:

1. Set up the phyto reactor with a starter culture and wait 7 days for it to mature.

2. Past the 7 days set the rotty culture and start dosing between 100 to 200ml of phyto in to the rotifers culture spread out in 24 doses.

The way I have it set up is:

I dose 9ml of salt mix in to the phyto reactor and 7ml from the phyto to the rotty culture every hour.

What will happen is 2ml of phytoplankton will over fill and fall into the tank and at the same time 7ml of rotifers will over fill from they’re reactor in to the tank also.

Does it make sense?

 

[sixty_reefer]

They called me crazy! 24 hour phyto supply “it’ll never happen” they said. But you’ve done it! Lemme go grab a link to the thread.
Edit: found it! https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/phytoplankton-fuge.523641/#post-5465250
Your concept is a bit different than mine but same concept.

You should of carry on and just do it mate, will read full thread once I get home. It is possible and without trying to jynx myself here it has been on continuous for 7-8 months on the phyto culture and 2-3 on the rotifers. The only maintenance is top up water reservoir and add 2ml of miracle grow. Way less headache than a remote culture.

Edited: your suspicion was true, phyto does help a lot with some of the most common issues that we battle on daily basis to get rid with expensive snake oil.

 

[chris85]

Awesome start!! I made one a while back but have it shutdown to rebuild it to sterilize the tank water so it will just recycle the tank water, and use it as a co2 scrubber. I was just using a drip system instead of pumps.

Keep up the good work... I will be sticking around to see what you come up with.

 

[Wonderboy]

Awesome experiment - awesome results!

Anyone putting this together might want to look into the potential of a thermosyphon to move and sterilize aquarium water in a recirculating setup. I haven't put it to practice, but I recently finished a design that I will be putting together soon.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Awesome experiment - awesome results!

Anyone putting this together might want to look into the potential of a thermosyphon to move and sterilize aquarium water in a recirculating setup. I haven't put it to practice, but I recently finished a design that I will be putting together soon.

Is your thought using the tank water to avoid salt creep? On my 60 gallon system I haven’t had any yet by using a remote reservoir with fresh mix. But I like that idea, if it works the only maintenance would be the fertiliser but I recon that could be on a doser to.

 

[chris85]

I will get back when I get off.... But basically so I don't have to use fertilizer just recycle everything. I ran the tank by itself with minimal water change for the last couple years. Maybe 10% in total. I also use nsw when I do a water change. Anyway I will get back.

 

[Wonderboy]

Is your thought using the tank water to avoid salt creep? On my 60 gallon system I haven’t had any yet by using a remote reservoir with fresh mix. But I like that idea, if it works the only maintenance would be the fertiliser but I recon that could be on a doser to.

The idea is near zero maintenance, reduce phyto nutrient demand (by cooking tank microbiology), and auto-feed corals. Planning to UV sterilize every 15 minutes in a recirculating chamber post thermosyphon and incorporate an overflow to cultures. A temp controller will monitor the UV chamber and prompt the heating element when the temp in there drops X degrees. With the right settings, water should overflow the UV chamber and feed into the phyto, then overflow to rotifers (ensuring large gap between phyto line and rotifer water to prevent back contamination), and then overflow one last time from there back into the sump/fuge. Will have to figure approximately how much water moves through the cultures in a day and, you're correct, have a dosing pump ready to respond with F2 into the UV chamber. Everything I'm going off on is still conceptual - really hoping it's as successful as your setup!