where to buy live phyto?

[beoks]

so i am going to attempt to grow my own pods mostly becuase i have all the stuff i need in the garage just sitting there might as well put it to use. i need to grow live phyto to feed the first whats a good phyto to start culturing and where to get it?

 

[returnofsid]

Here's a good article that compares different species of Phyto.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/aug2002/breeder.htm

I purchased live cultures from a reputable seller on Ebay a few years back. Unfortunately, that seller is no longer on Ebay. At the time, I was purchasing T. isochrysis species. It's a fairly hardy species, a little easier to culture than some other species, and is eaten by a wider variety of "predators." However, it's not very high in HUFA, though this won't be as critical when feeding the phyto to pods, as compared to feeding fish fry.

Now that I know more about it, if I were to culture phyto, I would culture more than 1 species, separately of course. If I were only going to culture a single species, it would be N. oculata.

The link above, also gives lots of information on different suppliers.

 

[beoks]

any place local lynnwood area that would have it?

 

[returnofsid]

I highly doubt you'll find any locally, unless you find another hobbyist who's culturing phyto. There used to be a group in central Washington, who were culturing and trading different species of phyto, but I think all of their cultures crashed a year or so ago, and none started back up.

If you buy phyto at a LFS, chances are, it'll be a mix of more than one species, which won't be appropriate for culturing.