Culturing Phytoplankton

[worley]

I thought I'd mention what I'm trying now...
With the help of my algae scrubber, I've moved the mirror away from one side and put a 2l bottle next to it, with an airline in.
I've put about 1.2 litres of RO salt water at 1.019 SG, then put 500ml of a culture of phytoplankton I got from ebay.
I'm going to try the Miracle Grow fertialiser route for feeding the phytoplankton.
So, I called up Miracle Grow in the UK, and I presumed that the lawn feed would be the safest, so asked them, and they said it was safe to use on lawns around ponds, and that if any was sprayed into the pond or washed into it by rain that it would only increase algae growth.
I then replied "Perfect!" to her suprise
Apparently the lawn feed fish safe in small quantities (obviously not if you dump the whole bottle in), and there's nothing too nasty in the ingredients.
I've added 3ml of Miracle Grow Lawn Feed to the phytoplankton and I'll see how well it works!
If all goes well, once it's all been absorbed I'll split the culture 50/50 into another new culture and for use in the tank.
I'll water down the phytoplankton in RO salt water (so that the green colour doesn't affect the test, then multiply the results to get the correct PPM for the phytoplankton) and test for phosphates and nitrates, and when they're undetectable I'll try using them. Hopefully this way it should stop any nitrates or phosphates from reaching the tank and affecting any results from the algae scrubber.
If any does get in, I guess the scrubber will grow algae faster :lol:
So, here goes, Day 0, straight after setup:
[attachment=0:1a3va40b]phytoDay0.jpg[/attachment:1a3va40b]
I'll use the same f-stop, shutter speed, ISO and white-balance to compare colours more accurately.

[worley]

oh and if anyone is interested, this is the chemical breakdown for the "Miracle-Gro LiquaFeed Lush Lawn Food":
12% total Nitrogen (N) 12% ureic nitrogen,
4% phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) soluble in water,
8% potassium oxide (K2O) soluble in water,
0.05% Manganese (Mn) chelated by EDTA,
0.05% zinc (Zn) chelated by EDTA

On a similar note, I've found that algae in salt water actually uses manganese oxide and potassium oxide to grow.
Now I'm not sure if phytoplankton will, but there's a chance, if not the algae scrubber should pull it out.
The only one left is the Zinc.

[worley]

ok after a bit of maths...
In natural sea water (NSW), there is 0.0005 ppm Zinc.
In miracle gro: 0.05% = 1,000,000 * (0.05/100) = 500 ppm
Therefore 1ml of miracle gro contains exactly 1 million times the trace amount in 1ml of NSW.
So 1ml of MG in 1l of phytoplankton water is 1000 times higher than trace amounts.
So 1ml of the 1l of phytoplankton in a 250 litre aquarium is 4 times the trace level every time it is dosed.
So, it's high, but it all depends if it's taken up by algae growth?

[SantaMonica]

Algae does take up many other things, but I did not make note of them. With the upcoming use of algae in biofuels, I'm sure the info will be easy to find. I considered culturing phyto, but my current projects are just taking to much time.

[worley]

[attachment=0:bjfyie2f]phyto.jpg[/attachment:bjfyie2f]
I've kept the photos at exactly the same settings (f stop, shutter speed, white balance, ISO) and tried to keep the scale/position as close as possible.
From the photos you can clearly see the Miracle Gro is working brilliantly, 3ml appears to be all used up between 48 and 72 hours on this batch.
The Nirtrogen in the Miracle grow isn't detectable as nitrate in salifert test kits, so it's a bit hard to say if it's going to cause any problems in the tank, but the colour does seem to suggest all the food has been used up.
I've now split it and put 1ml of phyto in my tank and no visible side affects at all after 3 hours on the tank, so I've added 5ml and will keep an eye on the tank + inhabitants.
I'm guessing 5ml of miracle gro will probably last nearly a week, but I'm guessing it all depends on the concentration of the phytoplankton starter culture in the first place as to how quickly it's all eaten.
I had to top off about 50ml of RO/DI water due to evaporation during this time.

[worley]

Happy to say I've now got 10 litres (2.6 gal!) of the stuff bubbling away, been using it in the tank with no issues so far, from what I can see, as long as it's all used up (when the algae stops going darker) the miracle grow doesn't seem to be dangerous to the tank, I however only have a pair of cleaner shrimp, a few soft corals and a few fish, so not sure on it's affects on hard corals, but I don't think it would be a problem.

[worley]

I've got a copperbanded butterfly fish that is a really picky feeder, so I've had to get live brine shrimp for it to eat, as it won't eat anything frozen, and it's already completely cleaned 53kg (117lb) of liverock completely of any copepods or fan worms.
I've been adding more and more phytoplankton to the brine shrimp, they're in a "goldfish" (I am still highly apposed to them being marketed as such!) plastic bowl with an air pump, and they've been eating around a litre a day of dense phytoplankton and are breeding like mad :-)
It's great, miracle grow goes in, live, enriched, brine shrimp come out for food for the fish =)... which then in turn goes to fish waste and then algae on the scrubber.
I really love it when the marine ecosystem in a tank can so closely match real marine ecosystems.

[snail]

worley, I'm wondering, do rotifers eat phyto?

I am most likely going to try and raise some clowns if my pair spawns. Thinking of setting up something like what your doing. I have read some fish breeding articles and sounds do able. Extra live stuff can be traded at the reef club.

I heard they use distilled water. Is that necessary? What water do you start with?

[worley]

Yes, I've not tried with rotifers yet, they are next on my list, but apparently you pour a starting culture into phyto like that and they'll multiply so fast you can't produce enough phyto to feed them, great for feeding corals and fish fry.
I've actually had one bottle of phyto bubbling there for 8 weeks and it's not crashed.
I use RO-DI water that I use for evaporation top-off each day (and making the very very small quantity of salt water I need when I clean the filters - I've made roughly 5 litres of salt water in 3 months since the ATS!)

[PHYTO4LIFE]

Imo If you want to learn about the potential of phyto in regard's to coral growth and available live food it is best to set up a 20G frag tank that also can be a quarinteen tank this will allow you learn about dosing and maximizing the true effect's of phyto in regard's to live filter if the idea of using a ATS is to keep in ton's of nutrition while maximising coral growth and total available deversed live food available in a small ecosytem while maximising inorganic export