Continuous phytoplankton|rotifers reactor 24h food supply

[garbled]

People have built the continuous UV-reactor style setups before in the past. I remember alot of failures, mostly involving the UV. Basically, you want the UV set to kill, and that means running the water through it slowly, or over and over. This causes heat, which causes the saltwater to precipitate calcium onto the sleeve, making the UV stop working, and then crashing the culture.

I'm not trying to discourage you, but in all the builds I've seen of the UV style, that was the issue that broke them. That or not enough UV, and then a roti got in the phyto. Solve that and you're good.

 

[sde1500]

One other random thought. What is the quality of the phyto being dosed? If it’s a continuous dosed culture it’s never very dense. Me growing separately from the tank and splitting weekly grows a very dense culture of phyto. Constant dosing would mean a very low density dose.

 

[sixty_reefer]

One other random thought. What is the quality of the phyto being dosed? If it’s a continuous dosed culture it’s never very dense. Me growing separately from the tank and splitting weekly grows a very dense culture of phyto. Constant dosing would mean a very low density dose.

Taken yesterday

 

[sixty_reefer]

May I had that I take 220ml of it daily and it stays at this colour

 

[Wonderboy]

Rotifers don't need dense phyto, they just need phyto to be present all the time. Balance comes from consistency, less so from intermittency; feeding rotifers in waves of concentrated phyto is a gamble and can quickly crash a culture. Continuous dilution of cultures is the way to go.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Rotifers don't need dense phyto, they just need phyto to be present all the time. Balance comes from consistency, less so from intermittency; feeding rotifers in waves of concentrated phyto is a gamble and can quickly crash a culture. Continuous dilution of cultures is the way to go.

The phyto is not as dense as the first videos, is a bit of a clear mix but keeps giving consistency on the culture

 

[sixty_reefer]

This was the weekend that just past was inspecting the quality of the culture, this has been consistent numbers

 

[cooltowncorals]

Following

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

What was the cost of the build, cultures and all?

 

[sixty_reefer]

What was the cost of the build, cultures and all?

I think around 80$ it depends if you getting all new.

Mainly

2 channel doser
Air pump 200l
500ml phytoplankton
50ml rotifers
2 bottles of water
5m air line
Aquarium silicone
Led 6000k

The cost will vary depending on the brands you getting and how bespoke you would want it, you could easily spend 100$ just on reactor if you wanted them in acrylic

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

I think around 80$ it depends if you getting all new.

Mainly

2 channel doser
Air pump 200l
500ml phytoplankton
50ml rotifers
2 bottles of water
5m air line
Aquarium silicone
Led 6000k

The cost will vary depending on the brands you getting and how bespoke you would want it, you could easily spend 100$ just on reactor if you wanted them in acrylic

No need to really be bespoke about it. Did you use RODI water for this?

 

[sixty_reefer]

No need to really be bespoke about it. Did you use RODI water for this?

It’s advisable to use rodi, but I have been using 50 tds tap water as in my case I wanted to experiment with some of the minerals present in tap water.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Tough in sharing how’s the tank looking today

The sump is looking a bit stripped, as part of my attempt to fight low no3, I’m also dosing 9ml of ATI N to keep nitrate at detectable levels.

Plans for the future is starting dosing silica, am still doing some research on the subject but should start soon.

not all updates are good news.
I’ve had an outbreak of hydroids, something that I was more or less prepared as it was inevitable for something like this to happen wend there’s so many food suspended in the water column 24/7, in addition I don’t quarantine any new rock additions as I want to preserve as more life as I can.

My plan is using 3 of this chromodoris

I’ve only ordered 2 but the supplier send me 3 for some reason. They known sponge eaters but part of their diet is also hydroids.

This brings new challenges but I think I can make it work, my sponge and tunicate population is more or less in every rock now, the rate they eat sponges is still unknown but I do have a back up plan.

 

[radiata]

Please keep us updated on your nudibranchs and your hydroid problem.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Please keep us updated on your nudibranchs and your hydroid problem.

Will do, I could just do a febenzadole treatment at any time but for the moment, am keeping chemicals to a last resort, last thing i need now is to kill all the microlife that took me months to source. Hopefully the nudibranch will be a positive move is a bit of a shoot in the dark as most information on this species is only vague.

 

[c-horse]

Thanks to your diagram and instructions in this thread @sixty_reefer, I have set up a phytoplankton reactor too. I used two smooth-walled bottles and a 15 watt led grow light. Here is a picture after a week:

When in operation I have a mirror in the back of the reactor to maximize the light its receive.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Thanks to your diagram and instructions in this thread @sixty_reefer, I have set up a phytoplankton reactor too. I used two smooth-walled bottles and a 15 watt led grow light. Here is a picture after a week:

When in operation I have a mirror in the back of the reactor to maximize the light its receive.

That’s awesome, did you found any challenges wile building it or setting it up?

 

[NY_Caveman]

Just stumbled upon this and read it all. Excellent job @sixty_reefer and everyone else chiming in.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Trying to organise the info on this thread

Skimmerless PhytoCube running the |Continuous Phytoplankton Method|
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sh...us-Phytoplankton-Method|.546401/&share_type=t

Please do bear with me, I didn’t realise I couldn’t edit some of the post. I have also moved to this forum permanently now.

 

[c-horse]

The biggest challenges is to set the amount of fluid that each bottle receive, so that the level of the reactor stay constant. I have to adjust it several time. It could be that y doing pump calibration is off.

Thanks for your instructions.

That’s awesome, did you found any challenges wile building it or setting it up?