Is there a lot of benefits to both fish and corals (other than breeding) cultivating Phyto & Pods to feed the tank? How about Brine? Like to hear from those who have are doing this. I know Paul B feed Brine everyday to his pipe fish. Does baby brine shrimps also benefit corals?
-
Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.
Phyto & Pods
- Thread starter horseplay
- Start date
Following along. This is something I've been wanting to do....when I'm sitting around scratching my head with nothing to do. I so want to set up cultures of phyto and maybe rotifers to feed the corals (and fish).
Joe,
I'm raising everything. I have Amphipods, Copepods, blackworms, and three different phytoplanktons going (each phyto is a different size and profile - one for immunity, one for growth, and one for Omegas).
On my normal nightly feeding I'll soak a small piece of home made food, add an ounce or 2 of each phyto, a few blackworms, and a squirt from the amphipod copepod mix - every few days I'll mix in a small amount of coral food (I'm using Coral Frenzy atm).
The corals are going nuts. As soon as the blend (with or without the coral frenzy) hits the water they open and start feeding. Zoas are expanding considerably and quickly. The most dramatic change has been in my acans, which have probably added 25%-30% to their size in the past few weeks.
Phyto really it isn't hard, just an initial investment, space, and it niggles into your time. I use 3 gallon containers for the phyto that you have to maintain (shake every day, weekly water changes at 1.019, etc.). Then you need a second set of containers to shift the phyto to during water changes (and soak the used cotainers to sterilize). A grow light, air pump, some rigid line, and a few good starter cultures, and some food (which is pricey for a small bottle but lasts a number of weeks) and you're good to go. The initial investment should set you back about $50 for the light from a home improvement shop, $50 for the equipment, and $60-80 for the cultures and food - depending on how many varieties you want to grow.
Amphipods are easy once you have the phyto farm up and running. Just keep them in a container and feed them the phyto, collect them in a fine net and do a water change once a week. A good pod culture will set you back $30 or so. Plus, once you've seeded your tank, they tend to reproduce in it. As said, I drop a few pods in every night and every few weeks I may drop a few extra in the tank and sump. My dragonette goby and wrasse hunt them down on the rocks.
I saw in another post you're already working with brine. If you do a search you'll find some easy methods using a pump and an old soda container - I did this for a while but stopped as I didn't want to worry about culturing the things every day, plus with the phyto the corals are doing well enough.
The blackworms I recently dropped a post on, again, simple with a minor consumption of time.
FYI, I've been selling a mix of the three phytos with amphipods and copepods to a few distributers on a very small scale and plan to go with some online marketing in the near future. I've given a number of bottles out to testers and have had great feedback. I have a few odd labeled bottles. Let me know when you'll be around Brick or Jackson and I'll give you one to try out. If you drop by my place I can show you my setup and routine.
Mark
I'm raising everything. I have Amphipods, Copepods, blackworms, and three different phytoplanktons going (each phyto is a different size and profile - one for immunity, one for growth, and one for Omegas).
On my normal nightly feeding I'll soak a small piece of home made food, add an ounce or 2 of each phyto, a few blackworms, and a squirt from the amphipod copepod mix - every few days I'll mix in a small amount of coral food (I'm using Coral Frenzy atm).
The corals are going nuts. As soon as the blend (with or without the coral frenzy) hits the water they open and start feeding. Zoas are expanding considerably and quickly. The most dramatic change has been in my acans, which have probably added 25%-30% to their size in the past few weeks.
Phyto really it isn't hard, just an initial investment, space, and it niggles into your time. I use 3 gallon containers for the phyto that you have to maintain (shake every day, weekly water changes at 1.019, etc.). Then you need a second set of containers to shift the phyto to during water changes (and soak the used cotainers to sterilize). A grow light, air pump, some rigid line, and a few good starter cultures, and some food (which is pricey for a small bottle but lasts a number of weeks) and you're good to go. The initial investment should set you back about $50 for the light from a home improvement shop, $50 for the equipment, and $60-80 for the cultures and food - depending on how many varieties you want to grow.
Amphipods are easy once you have the phyto farm up and running. Just keep them in a container and feed them the phyto, collect them in a fine net and do a water change once a week. A good pod culture will set you back $30 or so. Plus, once you've seeded your tank, they tend to reproduce in it. As said, I drop a few pods in every night and every few weeks I may drop a few extra in the tank and sump. My dragonette goby and wrasse hunt them down on the rocks.
I saw in another post you're already working with brine. If you do a search you'll find some easy methods using a pump and an old soda container - I did this for a while but stopped as I didn't want to worry about culturing the things every day, plus with the phyto the corals are doing well enough.
The blackworms I recently dropped a post on, again, simple with a minor consumption of time.
FYI, I've been selling a mix of the three phytos with amphipods and copepods to a few distributers on a very small scale and plan to go with some online marketing in the near future. I've given a number of bottles out to testers and have had great feedback. I have a few odd labeled bottles. Let me know when you'll be around Brick or Jackson and I'll give you one to try out. If you drop by my place I can show you my setup and routine.
Mark
Mark - thanks for the extensive info. Would love to check out your setup one day. (BTW I have bought a saw blade and will work on the acrylic soon 
).
Think I will start doing Phyto. One step at a time. Already have the air pump and airline tubing. Just need to find a suitable container and a shop light for HD. Many questions. Can I use the $10 Phyto from ACC as start up culture? Why do you keep the salinity at 1.019? Do you also keep pods at that salinity? And what food would you use for Phyto?
).Think I will start doing Phyto. One step at a time. Already have the air pump and airline tubing. Just need to find a suitable container and a shop light for HD. Many questions. Can I use the $10 Phyto from ACC as start up culture? Why do you keep the salinity at 1.019? Do you also keep pods at that salinity? And what food would you use for Phyto?
I'm curious as well. The one I always hear about is Micro Algae Grow from Florida Aqua Farms. Wondering if there are other options out there.
We want details!
We want details!
We have cultured the tigger pods from reef nutrition many times. Really, really simple: Buy container, pour it in a container with some saltwater and boom you have a culture. We then turkey baste out some of the pods and put in water from the tank. This goes on for a couple of months before it crashes. No feeding, no temp and no airline tubes and we still get roughly six months of pods out of one bottle. I think we baste in either weekly or twice a week, have to ask Nikki.
We won the phtyo setup from reef nutrition at RAP but we have not set it up yet, one of the projects on the list.
Mark, we might have to do some swapping and I would love to try some of your blend.
For the starter kit, if you are not a DIY type, they also have a ton of cultures for sale if you want to start:
Compact Culture System™ (CCS) | APBreed™ – Hatchery Solutions for Aquarists, Propagators and Breeders
We won the phtyo setup from reef nutrition at RAP but we have not set it up yet, one of the projects on the list.
Mark, we might have to do some swapping and I would love to try some of your blend.
For the starter kit, if you are not a DIY type, they also have a ton of cultures for sale if you want to start:
Compact Culture System™ (CCS) | APBreed™ – Hatchery Solutions for Aquarists, Propagators and Breeders
It seems I have accidentally cultured mysid shrimp. A 10g tank was setup with some Macros and a piece of rock from the main system. The purpose was to grow some copepods. The tank was fed occasionally with phyto and live rotifers. This morning I observed quite a few mysid shrimps in the water column. Maybe 10/L. Size is around 1 mm. The tank is lit 16 hours/day. The live rotifers must have encourage the growth of the mysid shrimps.