propagating phytoplankton

[Richard_Dicosimo]

i was wondering if anyone in calgary is doing it? and if so how did u start your origonal batches? because as far as i have read on the net people buy petree dishes of cultures from www.florida-aqua-farms.com. now i was wondering since once you have your cultures going in motion, you just keep splitting them to keep the process going, so why are people buying the petree dishes when u could just buy a jug of dts phyto?? am i wrong? can u not culture phyto after it has been refrigerated? am curious because i want to start culturing phyto but am not sure where to get a batch i can breed?

Also anyone know where to get a batch of rotifers to breed?

Richard

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Here's a link that some local reefers found useful.

http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html

[Richard_Dicosimo]

i actually just saw a post to his site and thats sorta what gave me the motivation to post about it on here.

Richard

[midgetwaiter]

Riverfront has started stocking live products from Vivid Reef recently. I haven't tried the phyto myself yet but I'm pretty pleased with the rotifers so far. it comes from Burnaby so I think there is less chance of the handling issues people had with DT's in the past while.

It should work pretty good as a starter, I may try this myself when I run out of Liquid Life.

[Willow]

if you want to be a real pimp daddy you need one of these.

http://www.premiumaquatics.com/aquamedic/planktonlightreactor.jpg
http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=AM-76009&Category_Code=Sales

[Richard_Dicosimo]

hahah yeah one of those is pretty nice but i can make one myself for less or even just usea 2L pop bottle for alot cheaper then the 100$ or whatever they are asking for it. Has anyone started a culture from a source that has been previously refrigerated?

Richard

[dreef]

Quote : Has anyone started a culture from a source that has been previously refrigerated?

I did, i worked just fine,don't know about dt's, i used some that a fellow reefer homebrews and sells.It was a month old, and refrigerated,just used a shotglass of it.Innoculated sterile 2L pop bottles filled with 0.19 saltwater,kept under 16 on,8 off light cycle, added a total of 3/4 tsp.of miracle grows.Let it go for 3 weeks and it turned out about 3 times darker green than what i purchased.

[Richard_Dicosimo]

Perfect thank you