Phyto and LED

[Marksfish]

I culture my own pods for my mandarins, so it is mostly food for them. Plus I have just started to "chuck" some in my main display tank at night to help the filter feeders. Yes, you do end up with far too much (and I have only just started), but you can swap it for other stuff and also flog it on the Bay for a couple of quid!!

It isn't difficult, just sits bubbling in the corner of my conservatory until I need it

Mark

[kerry]

I breed my own pods in a 10g for my mandarin as well. I had better numbers with phyto, I am using blended peas and shrimp now.

[Ace25]

I guess it just comes down to time/$ and how enjoyable it is for me, and growing phyto is really not that enjoyable to me. I can buy a 32oz bottle of Phyto for $30 that will last well over a year, or I can spend time every day growing it.

Anyway.. enough about what I would do.. this is what you want to do, so again, go for it with LEDs and please keep us informed. Even if I don't intend to ever do this myself the information you gain by using LEDs will be valuable to many others.

[kerry]

I hope to try it again but its a ways off.

[Marksfish]

So, on Saturday, my freshly made culture was looking like this:



Admittedly, I don't just have the LEDs at the moment, but a mix of 3x 3w 660nm on one side and a 6500k 20w cfl on the other side and it looks like this after 5 days, not bad for a unheated conservatory I don't think .



Next trial I think will be with 2 x 2x3W LED units

Mark

[kerry]

I await your next test trial.

[Bishop77]

Would either of you post pics of your pod setups? any advice on the matter? How much less are you getting with the peas and shrimp Kerry?
Thank you

[kerry]

Would either of you post pics of your pod setups? any advice on the matter? How much less are you getting with the peas and shrimp Kerry?
Thank you

I seem to have pods crawling all over the rocks and substrate when I feed them the mix of peas, carrots, and shrimp. I will try to remember to get some pics, its not much to look at. I just have a horizontal scrubber (built onto a HOB filter overflow coming into the tank) with a CFL over the screen and another CFL over the other side of the tank. It grows pods and red feather dusters really nice. I swap out some of this rock every 5-10 days or so and after a couple days the rock I put back in it is covered with pods again so the tank still produces a lot of them but, with the phyto I had many more on the glass of the tank so there is a difference. If i had to put a number on it I would have to say its about 15-20% less then when I did phyto and the home made mix.

[Marksfish]

My pods:

[kerry]

You mean phyto?