Lets talk greenwater

[Twitterbait]

I want to go into a series about home grown live food. I figure it would be best to start with the smallest organisms that we use. tell me how you are growing your own greenwater (DT's) phytoplankton. there are different methods and i would love to see the easiest ones you have found.

[pledosophy]

I use a 2 liter, a clip on light some RODI water, an air pump, and a good starter culture. Depending on the species of phyto some F2 as well. I used to just use window light, but not so feesable now.

[autochek]

I used a starter culture fron Florida aqua farms and some of their fertilizer.
I use 1 gallon jugs from any cheap store. The trick is keeping the cultures clean so they don't crash.

[2003mikem]

do you who use phyto see a difference in your coral when you feed with it?

al if so please explane the process so i might beable to start growing my own.

in appleton the LFS charge $21.00 for a 6 OZ bottle.


sorry for stealing your posty hope you dont mind?

[Casey]

I tried it and its super easy but if you feed it to the tank to much you get algae problems so I stopped with it.

[2003mikem]

what is to much?

155 bow front
100 gallon sump
425-550 pounds mixed live rock.

[Twitterbait]

The beauty with this stuff is it feeds on nitrates and phosphates... the bad thing is it is eaten by everything else and can increase your nitrates and phosphates if there is dead stuff left over. target feeding is best, the amount depends on your livestock.

[Twitterbait]

the best use for green water is feeding other live food your growing such as...

[Twitterbait]

ok, someone want to give us some basic instructions to grow it once we get our culture?

[Casey]

Originally Posted by Twitterbait

ok, someone want to give us some basic instructions to grow it once we get our culture?

Not a problem here ya go bud.
http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html

[Twitterbait]

awsome link casey... now that we have greenwater down lets move up the scale to the next group... Rotifers!!! i will start a new thread for them.

[rayjay]

Nanochloropsis is probably the easiest of any micro to grow.
I use salt water at 1.020 made up of 5 parts Crystal Plus water softener salt and 1 part epsom salts and buffered with a teaspoon of baking soda for each 5 gallons of mixed water.
I keep several cider jug cultures going just in case I have a crash, but my major culture is in a 26 gallon Brute container.
I started with a portion of live nano from ReefCrew, and added water and liquid plant fertilizer and placed the containers under spot lights with aeration.
In two days time, I remove about 4/5ths of the gallon cider jug and add more water and fertilizer and leave for another two days.
It is concentrated just enough so that mixing half nano and adding more culture water as described above for the other halve, makes a green culture water for raising the brine shrimp in. I decapp, hatch, siphon out, and rinse a tablespoon of cysts for each 5 gallons of the nano water.
With a light over the growout containers, I don't have to add more nano until I do a water change a week later. It is suitable for the first two weeks of the brines growout.

[Spanky]

and some tricks of the trade.

Sterile

The #1 cause of crashes is contamination.

Wash and rinse everything in Clorox (plain regular, NO fancy). If you need to use a Clorox as a soak (overnight), clean airline, bottles, etc or to start your culture with sterile - did I mention STERILE? - solutions, here's how.

American Clorox is 55g/L chlorine, you need a equal amount of cheap Hypo/Sodium Thiosulphate to neutralize it.
To make a stock solution of Hypo, add about 6 grams of Hypo to 100 ml of RODI water or purified water.

Add equal amounts of the Clorox and Hypo stock solution.

Ex. to sterilize water for cultures.
Add 1ml/cc of Clorox per gallon and let sit 24 hours or capped until you are ready to use it.
Add 1ml/cc of the Hypo stock solution per gallon to neutralize the chlorine.

Built a air filter for your aeration.
Easy. Take a foot - foot and a half of 3" PVC pipe. Reduce it on both ends to fit airline. (3/16") if you are using airline all the way.
If you have no source, AquaticEco has the fittings.
Start with filter fluff on one end, carbon in the middle, and filter fluff again.
That will usually get the job done. If not, AquaticEco has bacterial filters that will get it done for sure.

Rotate your cultures. As soon as they darken up, use what you need right then, and split the rest up to start new cultures. You always want to start cultures from "active" cultures, not from cultures that you have let sit for a while.

If your cultures get contaminated, there are ways to play around with specific gravity, temp, lighting, etc to favor one over the other. Unless you have the equipment and know how, it's easier to sterilize everything, order new cultures, and start over.