Phyto culture crashed then came back?

wzf106 · Apr 24, 2024

Hey guys. I started a phyto culture of tet a while back. Was running good for a while and was able to culture a few times. However, after the last time I cultured and split, I think it crashed. I added more salt water and F2 and a few days later noticed that the water started to get more yellow/clearish. I figured that it crashed and left it. I ordered a new bottle to fresh tet culture but left the crashed culture running for about a week. Now maybe 2 days ago, It is now starting to turn more and more green. Did the culture recover? Am I safe to use this in the tank? I do not have a microscope to check.

Also, after the last time I cultured. I noticed that in the bottles of photo that i took, there were clumps after shaking the bottle and they never dissolve. This was primarily the reason i didnt want to use this to restart the culture and bought a new bottle. What are these clumps? Should i just toss them or am i safe to use. Does not smell funky or anything

besskurz · Apr 24, 2024

Hey here are my two cents.

Clumps = normal
This is how it looks the bottom of the vessel I culture in.

And this is the what is been filtered out in a 150micron mesh

About the crash / recover:
-What proportions are you using?

I had that in this last culture and the reason was a wrong ratio of starter phyto and F2.
My ratio is 1ml F2 per liter and around 75ml of phyto to start. Water at 1020ish salinity. That's what I do and always worked fine.

In this last culture I was too much freestyle with the measures, trying an experiment with phytofeast.
Surely that thing is thick as hell. It was too much algae for too little food.