I have had a couple of conversations lately that made me think it might be helpful to explain why live phytoplankton should be refrigerated. This applies to live phytoplankton NOT dead phytoplankton.
The phyto species that we dose to our systems generally thrive in temperatures in the mid 70's, do well in temperatures from 70-85, and survive from 35-100. The reason for refrigerating is to slow down their metabolism and reproduction so that the culture doesn't continue to grow quickly and crash. At lower temperatures, everything is slowed down, and it will typically take weeks instead of days for the phyto to exhaust the resources available in the bottle and die.
So, if you forget to put your bottle back in the fridge right away on occasion, there is probably no harm done - might just shorten its time remaining slightly.
The phyto species that we dose to our systems generally thrive in temperatures in the mid 70's, do well in temperatures from 70-85, and survive from 35-100. The reason for refrigerating is to slow down their metabolism and reproduction so that the culture doesn't continue to grow quickly and crash. At lower temperatures, everything is slowed down, and it will typically take weeks instead of days for the phyto to exhaust the resources available in the bottle and die.
So, if you forget to put your bottle back in the fridge right away on occasion, there is probably no harm done - might just shorten its time remaining slightly.
