Culturing Phytoplankton

[sethsolomon]

Hey Guys!  A couple of hobbyists requested I post this as they are trying to breed some fish.

So I figured there were more and more people wondering how to culture phytoplankton I will make a guide.

Things you will need:
Air pump
Salt
Easy to clean containers
Muratic Acid or Bleach
Microalgae Fertilizer
Algae cultures
Refractometer
Light source (100w equivalent CFL. T5, Warm white LED's, Halide (Your insane if you do this))

Where to get algae cultures:

If you want the typical 4 strains, Algae Barn is your best bet. They are local and you can get the cultures fast. If your looking for more odd strains for specialty feeding order from http://www.carolina.com/.


What to feed the algae:

You technically can feed your phyto anything that you would feed normal plants. But since we are adding this to our aquariums, we need to be selective what we add to our tank. Guillard F/2 is the fertilizer formula that we use for culturing aquarium phyto. The main place I know where to order this from is Florida Aqua Farms. Their Micro algae grow is the Guillard F/2.


Containers:
You can grow phyto in any clear container that will allow lots of light to access the liquid inside. Anything from 2-liter bottles, to pickle jars, to carboys.

Air pumps:
This is a tricky part of figuring how powerful of an air pump you need. If you are just doing a single container up to 3 gallons or so, a basic air pump for a 10g aquarium will work fine. Anything more and you will have to do trial and error till you find an air pump that fits your needs. Here are the 2 pumps I used: EcoPlus Commercial Air Pump 1 and EcoPlus Commercial Air Pump 7. The 1 was bubbling 4x 3g carboys and the 7 was bubbling 6x 5g carboys and 8x brine shrimp tanks.

Bleach and Muratic Acid?:
These are used to sterilize the containers between refreshing your cultures. Cultures can get cross contaminated very easily. A single cell of Nanochloropsis will take over another culture within 3 weeks.

How to Make Phyto?:
Culturing phyto is as easy as mixing ingredients and waiting. You want to mix up saltwater to a salinity in the ballpark of 1.018 +- 0.03. Then you want to add the fertilizer as directed by the instructions on the bottle. Then add the phyto culture. Then aerate 24/7 so it is vigorously agitating but not foaming up. The you need to light it 18 on 6 off.


Harvesting and Maintaining Cultures:

Harvesting phyto is just pulling out what you want to feed to your tank and replacing what you pulled out with fresh salt water and adding the recommended fertilizer to that fresh salt water. I skip adding the fertilizer to the fresh salt water sometimes as I am using Fritz salt and it has a bit higher trace elements in it than typical Instant Ocean.Once a week you need to check the salinity and make sure it is in the ballpark from above. Top off with RO water (Do not add fertilizer to the top off water).


Things to Note:

Clean your equipment before swapping between cultures.

Trial and error is part of the process. So find what works for you and post here if you find a better way to do something.

Edited August 10, 2015 by sethsolomon

[dave w]

I think this is a pretty thorough list of instructions.  

 

However may I make a recommendation?  To most people, phytoplankton is synonymous with green nannochloropsis.  Please don't grow nanno except as a small additive to a higher quality algae.  Nanno is a "weed" phyto that grows quickly because it doesn't synthesize it's own vitamins or many complex fats.  It is cheap to add vitamins but nanno is still a relatively non-nutritious phyto and few organisms grow on it (artemia and rotifers are two that do, but even their nutritive quality is not strong unless enriched by better food).  

 

On the other hand, Isochrysis is a relatively high quality phyto.  It is brown instead of the green nanno.  Think of the nutrition difference between the crabgrass in your lawn (0% protein) as compared to alfalfa in a farmer's field (15% protein) if it helps illustrate the difference.  Generally, plants are good at creating lipids (fats) but poor at creating vitamins like thiamine and niacin.  On the other hand, bacteria (like yeasts) are good at creating things like B vitamins but poor at creating fats.  So a combination of the two is necessary for nutrition, just as a combination of different phytos is better than one.  But if you have to start with one, don't pick nanno.  Pick Iso, even though it is harder to culture.

 

People often say that both nanno and Iso are needed because they supply different types of fats (DHA and EPA) which is correct, but that is true only to a small extent.  Larvae do need both types of fats but the ones in nanno are not critical.  The fats (HUFAs) in the brown ISO are critical fats.  I'd say which fat is supplied by which phyto but I always forget which one has the DHA and which one has the EPA!

 

I hope that makes things more clear rather than too much data that make things more muddy.  But different alga have different fatty acid profiles.  It is OK to mix in a little crabgrass with a main diet of alfalfa, but remember the relative importance of the two algas.  

[sethsolomon]

I think this is a pretty thorough list of instructions.  

 

However may I make a recommendation?  To most people, phytoplankton is synonymous with green nannochloropsis.  Please don't grow nanno except as a small additive to a higher quality algae.  Nanno is a "weed" phyto that grows quickly because it doesn't synthesize it's own vitamins or many complex fats.  It is cheap to add vitamins but nanno is still a relatively non-nutritious phyto and few organisms grow on it (artemia and rotifers are two that do, but even their nutritive quality is not strong unless enriched by better food).  

 

On the other hand, Isochrysis is a relatively high quality phyto.  It is brown instead of the green nanno.  Think of the nutrition difference between the crabgrass in your lawn (0% protein) as compared to alfalfa in a farmer's field (15% protein) if it helps illustrate the difference.  Generally, plants are good at creating lipids (fats) but poor at creating vitamins like thiamine and niacin.  On the other hand, bacteria (like yeasts) are good at creating things like B vitamins but poor at creating fats.  So a combination of the two is necessary for nutrition, just as a combination of different phytos is better than one.  But if you have to start with one, don't pick nanno.  Pick Iso, even though it is harder to culture.

 

People often say that both nanno and Iso are needed because they supply different types of fats (DHA and EPA) which is correct, but that is true only to a small extent.  Larvae do need both types of fats but the ones in nanno are not critical.  The fats (HUFAs) in the brown ISO are critical fats.  I'd say which fat is supplied by which phyto but I always forget which one has the DHA and which one has the EPA!

 

I hope that makes things more clear rather than too much data that make things more muddy.  But different alga have different fatty acid profiles.  It is OK to mix in a little crabgrass with a main diet of alfalfa, but remember the relative importance of the two algas.  

+1  Good info.  

[s2nhle]

Great information. Thank you for sharing.

[AlanM]

So Dave or Seth,

 

Do you have additional tips for culturing isochrysis successfully since it's apparently more prone to crash?

[sethsolomon]

So Dave or Seth,

 

Do you have additional tips for culturing isochrysis successfully since it's apparently more prone to crash?

Clean your containers thoroughly.

[angel not fish]

Seth, where do you buy algae ?

[sethsolomon]

Seth, where do you buy algae ?

Its in the main post

 

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[dave w]

Clean your containers thoroughly.

When you clean your containers, use an acid wash on them for better sterility.  Especially if they are glass.

[AlanM]

Would a phosphoric acid wash like saniclean be ok?  I always used that on my homebrew supplies for sanitization.

[dave w]

I would guess that it would do just fine if your homebrew turns out well.  I wouldn't know for sure unless I sampled a mug of your beer.  

 

For that matter, I wonder if anyone has tried the carbonic acid of coca cola?  I think the pH of that is around 3, although the sugar would make things sticky it could always be rinsed afterwards.