Random diatom culture experiment?

[Levinson]

I want to try to culture random diatoms to (maybe) supplement feed for the Tisbe copepod culture.
I know not all diatoms are suitable feed for Tisbe copepods but I want to try taking a shot in the dark to see if it could work (although I may never be able to confirm).

The idea is to get a small container filled with saltwater and encourage a diatom to bloom naturally (out of nowhere, without seeding a specific strain) like how they would bloom in a new tank.
How would you make diatom to bloom? I see many threads on getting rid of them but not the other way around.
I don't have a solid idea as to how I would do this yet but here are some of my thoughts:

Methods brainstorming:
- Mix saltwater with tap water(dechlorinated), leave the container by the window, or use LED light to light it (might or might not aerate).
- Mix saltwater with RODI water, add some F/2 medium, and add some sodium silicate solution (don't know how much yet, might have to dilute it first). Leave the container by the window, or use LED light to light it (might or might not aerate).
- Same as above except without the sodium silicate solution.
- Use old tank water, add some F/2 medium, and add some sodium silicate solution (don't know how much yet, might have to dilute it first). Leave the container by the window, or use LED light to light it (might or might not aerate).
- Put some shrimp poop or fish feed in the water, light it, then wait?

Luckily I think I have most of the ingredients for the experiment, including sodium silicate solution, F/2 medium, sodium thiosulfate, etc.
What are your thoughts on the idea? Any ideas and input are welcome.

 

[Kmst80]

Sodium silicate is the go.
I had a Dino outbreak and after a couple of month fighting it and bringing it under control I started dosing sodium silicate to let the diatoms out compete the leftover dinos. I was dosing 1 ppm silicate a week and after 3 weeks upped it to twice a week. What a mistake. The water turned brown and all corals were pretty ticked off. Nearly nuked my tank, only lost 1 and a half corals.
Not sure if your pods would survive in such conditions,all my inverts were on the edge of dying, even the snails.

 

[Levinson]

Sodium silicate is the go.
I had a Dino outbreak and after a couple of month fighting it and bringing it under control I started dosing sodium silicate to let the diatoms out compete the leftover dinos. I was dosing 1 ppm silicate a week and after 3 weeks upped it to twice a week. What a mistake. The water turned brown and all corals were pretty ticked off. Nearly nuked my tank, only lost 1 and a half corals.
Not sure if your pods would survive in such conditions,all my inverts were on the edge of dying, even the snails.

I guess I should dose way less sodium silicate than that then.

 

[Kmst80]

I guess I should dose way less sodium silicate than that then.

BTW...the diatoms did outcompete the dinos.
If you want to dose your Display tank than make sure you can test for it. If it's just a pod culture start slow and do it by trial and error. Split your culture and run one with lower dose one with higher.

 

[Dan_P]

I want to try to culture random diatoms to (maybe) supplement feed for the Tisbe copepod culture.
I know not all diatoms are suitable feed for Tisbe copepods but I want to try taking a shot in the dark to see if it could work (although I may never be able to confirm).

The idea is to get a small container filled with saltwater and encourage a diatom to bloom naturally (out of nowhere, without seeding a specific strain) like how they would bloom in a new tank.
How would you make diatom to bloom? I see many threads on getting rid of them but not the other way around.
I don't have a solid idea as to how I would do this yet but here are some of my thoughts:

Methods brainstorming:
- Mix saltwater with tap water(dechlorinated), leave the container by the window, or use LED light to light it (might or might not aerate).
- Mix saltwater with RODI water, add some F/2 medium, and add some sodium silicate solution (don't know how much yet, might have to dilute it first). Leave the container by the window, or use LED light to light it (might or might not aerate).
- Same as above except without the sodium silicate solution.
- Use old tank water, add some F/2 medium, and add some sodium silicate solution (don't know how much yet, might have to dilute it first). Leave the container by the window, or use LED light to light it (might or might not aerate).
- Put some shrimp poop or fish feed in the water, light it, then wait?

Luckily I think I have most of the ingredients for the experiment, including sodium silicate solution, F/2 medium, sodium thiosulfate, etc.
What are your thoughts on the idea? Any ideas and input are welcome.

Diatoms grow well in Instant Ocean, 10-20 ppm nitrate, 1-2 ppm phosphate. They are the first things to grow in a mixed culture but then other algae take over. If you want a pure culture, you will probably need to transfer some of the diatoms mid-bloom into clean medium. This will help thin out the other algae.

 

[Levinson]

BTW...the diatoms did outcompete the dinos.
If you want to dose your Display tank than make sure you can test for it. If it's just a pod culture start slow and do it by trial and error. Split your culture and run one with lower dose one with higher.

It would be done in a small separate container. No dosing the DT or the pod culture.

Diatoms grow well in Instant Ocean, 10-20 ppm nitrate, 1-2 ppm phosphate. They are the first things to grow in a mixed culture but then other algae take over. If you want a pure culture, you will probably need to transfer some of the diatoms mid-bloom into clean medium. This will help thin out the other algae.

Haven't thought of thinning out other the other algae. Sounds like a good idea.

 

[taricha]

If you can get a scraping from glass with a diatom film, that might be a pretty diatom-dominant seed to start growing with. Under microscope, a diatom film from my glass was only visibly diatom cells.

 

[Levinson]

Update:
It's been 18 days since I gave this a try.
It was just a glass jar with about 1 litre of 34ppt saltwater (RODI mix), some F/2 medium (about 1.5ml), some sodium silicate solution (about 10 drops of 2/55 diluted 40%(?) solution), and very little scraping from aquarium glass.
There was no aeration and I left it next to my phyto culture to get 12 hours of light per day. The jar was not covered.

As soon as I dropped the silicate solution some white/yellow crust-like stuff formed at the bottom. Have no idea what they are.
I've occasionally slowly stirred the glass jar. About every 3 days on average.
I've topped off with RODI water once.

It took over 10 days for me to see any sign of algae growth. From about the 10th day onwards, I started to see bubbles form.

The microscope that I bought 2 weeks ago came today so I got to take a look at a sample.
Some looked like your typical diatoms but there were many that didn't look like that. It looked like a mix of a number of different species of algae.

I need to get myself one of though smartphone holders for microscopes. It's so hard to take pictures with my phone through the microscope lens.

Does anyone have any information on any site that might help with identifying microalgae? Any tips or suggestions on how to identify microalgae would be nice.

It's difficult to see in the picture but there's brown film growing on the sides as well.

 

[Levinson]

Today I found what appears to be tiny stringy bits of Ulva growing in the jar.

 

[Levinson]

I got a bit of brown film off the jar and checked it out with the microscope.
I'll try feeding these to the Tisbe copepods in a small container and see if they can live/multiply on them.