phyto to go!

[lynz]

Over the course of a big move, stuff hit the fan at my male seahorse's expense :(. No, he's not dead, just scratched, and if you've ever owned ponies, well... yeah.

 

Anyway, I won't bore you with the particulars other than the mad dash (and rifling through my fish supplies trying to find this and that) to find brine shrimp (check), gut load them with meds to prevent, you know, death (check), enjoy the male playfully snick them up (check and whew!), 50 percent water changes and an army of airstones... and now here I am with half a Home Depot bucket of brine shrimp, aerated, with the phyto poured in that i had laying around (usually reserved for my clam). 

 

So suffice to say, I wasn't prepared to feed the buggers, other than my slurpee of phyto in the fridge. Like a good hobbyist, I've now taken it upon myself to try to cultivate and rear every creature big and small in my office and will be ordering a couple strains of algae mentioned in the previous posts in the forum and apparently chugging soda over the weekend. 

 

If you've kept with me so far, i'm really asking if anyone has any suggestions of some ready-made stuff to pour in (and how much) or if any of our lfs have some phyto available, 7-11 style until I can get my butt in gear?

 

 

 

[gmerek2]

Oh no! I don't know much about sea horsies :( I do keep brine shrimp 24/7 now. Is the phyto for them? I just sprinkle in a little reef roids and selcon. I have even kept them in an un cycled bucket. I of course use a lot less food but somehow they live through it. Just keep adding water to it to dilute the nasties or put a piece of LR in there! Good luck lyndzers

Edited April 2, 2016 by gmerek2

[Anemone]

I think Exotic Reef Creations has phyto cultures available (read that recently here somewhere.)

[lynz]

woohoo, thanks for the advice Brian! I'm pretty sure i was thisclose to being thrown out when I explained recreating the food chain in the office. I dumped in the phyto that I had and pumped some selcon in along with the meds for the next batch.

[lynz]

Thanks Anemone for the tip, I'll try to reach out to someone in the morning!

[AUFishGuy]

i have also just started culturing phyto to in turn culture pods. If you have any questions let me know. A tip would be to culture different strains of phyto seperately. Certain Strains will take over a culture.

 

i know House of Tropicals sells DTs but i am sure there is someone closer to you. good luck

[DaveS]

Not sure if it's applicable to here but when I was breeding fish, i skipped the phyto step complexity but using A green water concentrate: http://apbreed.com/product_rgcomplete.php. It made things sooooo much easier. Couple of drops a day and I was done. No worrying about phyto crashes or lots of 2 L bottles everywhere.

[lynz]

Thanks Dave, I think you just saved my brine shrimp... otherwise all the bottles and tubes were a hard sell to my SO.

[lynz]

Wow, 12 bucks a bottle for the rg complete, but 51 dollars for shipping... were you able to find this locally?

[DaveS]

Unfortunately I never found a local source. You should be able to get away with 2 day shipping so that makes it $20. Find someone to order with you and split the s&h helps too.

[lynz]

Ah 20 bucks I could probably live with but the website was quoting me 51 for 2 day :(

[DaveS]

Not sure, I see $20.  Give them a call Monday morning!

[YHSublime]

Thanks Dave, I think you just saved my brine shrimp... otherwise all the bottles and tubes were a hard sell to my SO.

 

Hey Lindsay! I hope all is well! I don't have a solution to your particular conundrum, but I can offer you this, FWIW. You're welcome to keep your pony in my office tank in Alexandria until you can figure out what your deal is going to be. I don't know if it will be more stressful, and full disclosure, I don't know the temp on my tank. I keep the office at 73, but I don't have a heater on it, and it's only 6 gallons. I do have some lights that probably keep the temp up during the day, still don't know what that is. I do have 2 clowns in there, but they pretty much mind their own. If you're still in the area, consider it a temporary solution, but I hope you've worked out other arrangements since. Cheers!

[Squishie89]

Check with reefescape, they at least used to have algagen stuff on tap (part of the live feed program). Good luck!!!!!

[lynz]

Thanks Isaac for the offer. Actually I was looking at the one that I thought was battling vibro and am now leaning towards a)I'm a helicopter parent and was paranoid and b) he was switching colors on me due to the move and different tank colors. Anyway, I'm going to keep monitoring the situation... he seems happy enough in the hospital tank eating his fill of live enriched brine. I think it's all the buckets of water and the current 4 tanks (usually just 2) going in the office right now that is grating on the SOs nerves . I, like many on here, always skirt the line with my various tanks, especially on nights last night when we had to keep the generator going !

 

Jessica-- yes! Thank you, I couldn't remember where I saw that Alagen dispenser! If bottled phyto doesn't work I'm going to call them and see if they're still offering it as a backup option.

 

Thanks WAMAS!!

[YHSublime]

Glad all is well

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk