Phytoplankton

[jefftse]

Hi all,

 

I wonder if anyone dose phytoplankton or any type of coral food for their aquarium. I thought fish poop might be enough but I could be wrong.

 

If you do, please let me know which one you use.

 

Thanks

Jeff

[Chad]

Phytoplankton can be of benefit, but it is usually indirect. Most of the things you mention having are carnivores, however, dosing phyto can lead to a higher copepod and other microlife population that can be of benefit (and is if you maintain your tank in a more natural way).

 

If you are going to do a long-term scheme of dosing phyto, then I strongly recommend 1) growing your own as it's much much cheaper, and 2) going with isochrysis as it's about the healthiest single species phyto out there.

 

If purchasing, go with one that has a good mix and density like phycopure.

[Ryan S]

Jeff, did you see this video?

 

 

Go to 4:25 if not. They have a doser for 4 things: Mag, Alk, and Cal. And the 4th is for phytoplankton. I've never heard of dosing it, so I am also intrigued. Personally, I dose Alk, Cal, and Vinegar right now. I add phyto manually a couple times each week to the DT.

[jefftse]

I actually did and made me think! LOL

[BowieReefer84]

Very hard to control nitrates dosing that stuff ime. I tried DT Phyto before and my nitrates shot way up. I stopped.

[Chad]

Ryan, do some searching into NPS style tanks... you'd be amazed at some of the other things that get dosed in some of those systems... (like lanthanum chloride, food emulsions and such...).

 

Every now any again you see a high profile tank that pops up and uses one of these. Realize though, that there are a couple of very broad schools of thought when it comes to reefkeeping... the goal of nutrients as low as possible (and with it, vodka, biopellets, zeovit, ulns, etc.) and the goal of more diversity (DSBs, macro algae, phyto additions, etc.). I stretch the extremes a little since there is some middle ground... However, if going for one of the extremes (nutrients as low as possible), I think adding phyto is contrary to your goal...

 

I say it's contrary because in these type of systems, there tends to be very little in terms of available nutrients, which means there usually isn't a lot of copepods and such around and the food is more likely to end up being pulled out by the large protein skimmer or rotting and contributing to the problem you are trying to avoid before it does any good. When I ran my tank skimmerless, I added up to a 1/4 cup of DTs or phycapure a day. There was a TON of tiny life going on in there.

[Jan]

My home made food should have plenty of food for your SPS and LPS; rotifers, phytofeast, Golden pearls (5-800 micron sz), and more. There are about 5 coral foods/supplements in my food.

[Steve175]

Every time I have consistently dosed phyto, I am forced to stop with an algae bloom. Nothing - including 4+ year maximas x3 - seem to notice when I stop. In my current system, my nitrates fell from 3 to 1 with stopping phyto and switching to simple pellet ~ 5d/wk which was the main ingredient in resolving a small but irritating and persistent bryopsis problem.

[Ryan S]

Very hard to control nitrates dosing that stuff ime. I tried DT Phyto before and my nitrates shot way up. I stopped.

 

Makes sense. In the 400 video that shows the phyto doser above, keep watching and a few seconds after that, Dave shows a device he had to add b/c the nitrates were so high. Some sort of nitrate factory that removes them from the system, it's probably b/c they dose the phyto in the first place.