Culturing Phytoplankton
 

I started culturing phytoplankton about 2 weeks ago. Took some photos earlier today. I've been culturing in empty 2 liter soda bottles in an empty salt bucket being lit by a 13 watt compact fluorescent bulb. I split the original culture into 2 after one week.


For complete detailed instructions -

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

http://www.sjwilson.net/reef/phytosteps.html


For supplies and starter culture disks-

http://www.florida-aqua-farms.com/


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Here is a pic of the second culture after a week. I used 20 drops of fertilizer in this bottle.

This culture is extremely dense.

Here is a pic with a mag-lite shining through the bottle to show the density.

I'm going to split my 2 bottles into 4 very soon.

Great tread I will be starting my soon.

I am meeting with the head of the Biology labs at FSU next week for reef aquarium purposes and I am going to see if I can get some phytoplankton starters from her. They grow a lot of different species. Maybe I can get access to a centrifuge to separate off the fertilizer from the cells.

You'll have to post your results.
I can send you a starter culture if you want. You are not that far from me so priority mail should arrive the next day. Same for you D12Monkey.

THat would be great but don't worry about it. I am going to see maybe if DT's work first because it is supposed to and I think it would be neat to find out. After that I'll go to regular cultures if it doesn't work.

I've heard that you can start a culture from DT's but have never tried it. Let me know how it works out.