Phytoplankton

by **charlesr1958** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:58 pm

For those of you who wish to culture your own phytoplankton, I got extremely lucky by having a marine species bloom in my little desk top tank. I took that 1/2 gallon of water and put it into a 5 litre jug, topped it off with ocean water and dosed it with a tiny bit of fertilizor and I now have at least 30 gallons of the stuff !! And it won't stop growing!! I pour large drinking glasses full of it into my system once a day, and once a night, and I still can not deplete it...lol

Some time ago, a friend in the states sent me some phytoplankton cultures in a petri dish and enough liquid fertilizor to make more than 10,000 litres of phytoplankton !! Well, the cultures never made it and am almost glad they did not because they were a real pain to culture. You always had to have everything sterilized and adjust the salinity down and test for it all the time. I got really sick and tired of it, but tried my best anyways since I had no other source.

The beauty of this species of phytoplankton is that it is extremely hardy, grows like crazy, does not need any special attention and takes just regular ocean strength saltwater. The large tub of it shown above is where I grow brine shrimp & copepods so that it creates a thick zooplankton soup which I then add any sexy shrimp and harlequin shrimp larvae in the hopes they will grow up in there.
The fertilizer I have grew that large tub of phytoplankton with just two small capfulls added !!

Anyways, if anyone wants a starter culture as well as some of the fertilizor, I can put together some small bottles of both that someone can pick up and take back to Manilla on their next trip to cebu.

Chuck

by **Hawkeye** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 11:19 pm

by **charlesr1958** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:06 am

by **Hawkeye** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:19 am

by **stannn_** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:35 am

hahaha. i dont think you can rely on me on culturing these babies since it is too advance for me to handle.. LOL. but i am more than willing to be just a transporter whenever i get to cebu

by **tommy** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:17 am

wow this is great....i hope i can culture some also...i remmember seein someone post a link where you can buy locally i think somwhere in iloilo...btw, what is the procedure?

by **CLYVZ** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:35 am

Congrats!! I really want to learn how to do it..

by **charlesr1958** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:53 am

by **jackryan** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:32 am

by **charlesr1958** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:13 am

by **charlesr1958** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:14 am

by **tommy** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:50 am

by **charlesr1958** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:15 pm

by **logs** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:39 pm

by **CLYVZ** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:52 pm

Phytoplankton

Phytoplankton

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