Phytoplankton Farm

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D-Man

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 6, 2009
Messages
55
Location
Edmonds
Working on a new project, I am going to begin to grow phytoplankton to feed my tank and possibly sell to other reefers if all goes well. I am in the process of building a phyto cabinet to house all the cultures and equipment.

I'll post photos as soon as I finish the cabinet.

-Devin
 
Great idea! Its funny you started this thread. I was just thinking about starting a project for phytoplankton. Beat me to it. Now. How bout a grow out station for copepods? Or has that 1 been done too?
 
I think we have more Eric's here than Devin's :lol:

On the farms, both sound good. I've seen people in the past do them, bit on smaller scales for their own personal use. This is where refugiums come into play like with copepods. They grow them there to feed the tank. :)


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Ya the cabinet I built probably will hold about ten 2liter bottles so it's not that large of a scale culture operation, but it's not small.

And I don't have a need to grow Copepods my refugium is full of them, but it would be a cool little project to try.

Sorry I beat you to it pandora lol
 
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Well, I've cut back on my nannochloropsis cultures from 150g to about 20g now as I've switch to using spirulina powder from Brine Shrimp Direct and putting it in the blender with some water and blending it for two minutes. The spirulina is MUCH more nutritious than nanno.
I used to grow four other cultures of phyto but found keeping them to be to much of a PITA as they required VERY clean situations and were easily contaminated by airborne spores.
I stupidly sealed the container so that nothing could get in except the air from the air pump, not realizing I was still introducing the spores through the pump air. Duhh!
The nanno however, I grow in a 20g rubbermaid container meant for storing things I think. It's low and rectangular so I use spiral lights over it for growth. I find as long as I don't take out more than half of the culture at any time, I don't get crashes.
I clean out the container about once a month at a time when the culture is down to about half full. I pour the nanno through a 65 micron mesh net (again from BSD) to remove larger particles that have accumulated, (and bugs that get in and drown) and pour back into the cleaned out container.
 
Contaminents from the air pump...hmmm...who woulda thunk:rofl:. Its all good D man. I have copepod grow out in my fuge as well. What I was talking about is setting up a seperate little tank for growing out extras for maybe selling or giving away to the forum. I think I will try to see if I can find out info for pod happiness in a tank. Anybody have an Idea? Liverock for hiding? Or just leave the tank empty of rock and sand?
D man, make sure and post some pictures of your progress. Im really interested in how you go about it.
 
Huh.. I know phyto need a sterile environment to be viable, but I never thought about possible contaminants entering the system through the air the air pump pushes through the system. that is a cool project in itself, creating a small scale "air scrubber" that removes contaminants from the air.

pandora32: oh ok, that would be an interesting project! if you could figure out what environment and conditions they thrive in maybe we could partner up to grow them. if I am successful in growing phyto, i could send you the phyto to feed to the pods.
 
Ok here are some pics of the cabinet, i still need to add doors, find bottles, and buy a new air pump.

Excuse the pics I only had my Ipad on hand.
IMG_0026.jpg

IMG_0025.jpg

IMG_0024.jpg
 
haha lets do it! just got to figure out how to grow them pods in bulk, hmmm... ;-)
 
Im Jason, am I alone? HELLO o o o
Maybe it's my age but I don't understand your comment. You certainly aren't alone on the thread as there have been two posts since your last post yesterday, and, your post yesterday wasn't something that required a reply. If you are talking about your personal situation, how can be be expected to know?
 
I think he is talking about his name. Like if he is the only one named Jason cause we were talking about names.
 
Thanks! Told you it was probably an age thing. I guess the pain meds might have added to the problem as well.
 
Sadly this project is going to have to be put on the back burner for now. Life is becoming too busy at the moment, but I will report back when I get this thing going again.

I may use this project for an engineering experiment in the future, which will involve turning phytoplankton into fuel that can power a combustion engine....
 
Nvm the project is back on!

First cultures are started I have a small culture going and a large 1 gallon culture started. FAF sent me an extra algae disk for free so i decided to try a large culture right off the bat.

pics coming soon
 

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