Starting a Phytoplankton Culture

Would i be able tou use DT's to start a phyto culture?

Anybody have any good tips on starting and keeping it running?

 

Dt's would be fine to start a culture. If you use the search engine I'm sure you will fine something on starting one.

 

When using any mixed culture you are gambling what the culture will become. What do you plan on using this for, just feeding your tank? Most likely the nanno will win the battle and nanno doesn't make for a great tank feed.

 

Yeah i wanted to do maybe a couple of 2 liter soda bottles worth of phyto and feed my tank every other day with em,

What do u mean nanno?

 

Nanno aka Nannochloropsis oculata. It's a species of phytoplankton commonly used in aquaculture for growing rotifers and other things. It has a high EPA fatty level and is easy to grow but it's a very tough cell to digest for many critters.

 

So im guessing DT's would be made from these?

Which one would you recomend in that case

 

DT's is made up of several kinds of phyto. Only one will grow.
Why not buy a single culture starter, either a culture disk like Florida Aqua Farms sells, or buy a culture concentrate from one of many places that sells it.
I prefer to start using a concentrate because it takes less time to get to harvesting.
There may even be a hobbyist around you that you can get a starter culture from.
Personally, I don't dose phyto to my tanks anymore. Instead, I use the phyto to grow rotifers, and then I gut load the rotifers and feed them to my tanks after lights out when the feeding tentacles come out.
I grow the rots in nanno as it's the easiest to grow, and I gut load the rots with Algamac Protein Plus.
I have much better results than just dosing nanno to the tanks.

 

Thanks for th info ill try to find some local phyto and culture rotifiers

 

+1, also check the DTs for life (microscope). Often there is die off, and I found it hurts your chances of successful cultures. (probably not DTs fault but the local store). I had better success with getting a live culture from a local that was culturing it.

 

You can't really tell if most phyto is dead using a microscope as most are non motile You have to do an Evans Blue (sp?) test. Non of DT's is motile.