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Sculpin 
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 Topic: Breeding and Auto Dosing Phytoplankton...
Posted: September 08 2008 at 10:54pm |
Recently I built a cool Kalkwasser auto-doser for my parents 235 (mainly so I don't have to be up there all the time configuring and adjusting there perimeters). Anyways, on the reef tour this past weekend I was impressed with some of the phytoplankton cultures that some of the club members were sporting (i.e Suzy) and it has lead me to this question.
Is it possible to culture and dose phytoplankton in the same container?
Here is the Kalkwasser auto doser I made the other day to give you an idea for what I'm taking about-
I used a briquette kaddy made by kingsford for dispensing charcoal. It had a fairly tight lid and can hold around 10 gallons. It's also set up with an auto top off connected to my R.O. water. The doser I used was a Aqua Lifter and works amazing for $15 bones. After that it was just plumbing parts, configuring the dosing time with my aquacontroller to run at night and thats it. It totaled around $30-40 for the whole thing and now I'm wondering could one of these be used for dosing Phyto?
Some other questions I have are, how often should I dose, what kind of an effect will this have on my ORP levels, and is this food for corals, fish or both?
Thank you so much for the help and sorry for the wordy post.
Sculpin
Edited by Sculpin - September 08 2008 at 10:59pm
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cl2ysta1
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Posted: September 08 2008 at 10:59pm |
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phyto kind of takes a long time to grow in my experience. at least enough to feed rotifers. which is why we use a paste. You could always just buy the paste and dose that. as far as i know the only things that eat phyto are pods, rotifers, and clams filter it.
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Shane H
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Posted: September 08 2008 at 11:22pm |
Maybe Jason Grange will chime in here. He was experimenting with a "plankton reactor" at one time. As I recall it was a similar set up, but he was focusing on zooplankton.
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Sculpin
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Posted: September 08 2008 at 11:39pm |
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I think I'm at a lack of education on this one as to how the ocean food chain all works. What I would simply like it to do is auto dose my corals with food that has little to no ill effect on my tank. I could always just get a whole bunch of DT's but they are dead and consequently add to the bioload. I want something alive and fresh so they can be efficiently consumed by my coral. Can this be done with weekly maintenance and daily automatic feeding? And if so would I need to change my design for a dosing contraption?
Thanks
Sculpin
Edited by Sculpin - September 08 2008 at 11:51pm
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cl2ysta1
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Posted: September 09 2008 at 7:29am |
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technically DTS should be alive. The paste we use is dead.
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: September 09 2008 at 8:44am |
You can make plankton reactors (or buy them). But for most people that is actually more work. It is recommended by most that you raise rotifers and then feed the rotifers to your tank. That is a cost effective move that can produce food for your corals.
Were you at the August meeting?
Adam
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Shane H
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Posted: September 09 2008 at 10:40am |
Greenwater (phytoplankton) ---> Rotifers (zooplankton) ---> Corals / Fish
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Sculpin
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Posted: September 10 2008 at 11:38am |
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I missed the meeting unfortunately. So would it be possible to grow rotifers or zooplankton where they reproduce as fast as I drip dose? If so is there someone out there that can help me out with this, I love this auto dosing idea for feeding my coral and would love to make this a reality.
Thank you
Sculpin
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: September 10 2008 at 11:42am |
Sculpin- lets meet up and I'll help you out. The key isn't growing phyto. In fact many upon many experts have shown that. The key is growing rotifers. And yes, you can do that in a drip system. I may have an old one... if so you can have it.
Adam
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Sculpin
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Posted: September 10 2008 at 7:52pm |
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That sounds great! Rotifers eh? I'll have to start looking into that. Where and when would you like to meet? I'd love it if you could come up and check out the tank (it's at my parents house in Bountiful in the Eaglewood area) and maybe you can give me some extra pointers on the tank, after all I'm still a super noob at all this.
Let me know what works for you, thank you.
Sculpin
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soundsurfer
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Posted: September 12 2008 at 11:51am |
 Shane H wrote:
Greenwater (phytoplankton) ---> Rotifers (zooplankton) ---> Corals / Fish
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Greenwater(phytoplankton) ----> Rotifers (zooplankton) ---> Corals / fish (what we like)-----> Rock crabs/ mantis shrimp/ (what we hope we don't have) ------> Tweezers/traps/toilets (where we send them)
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Posted: September 12 2008 at 8:37pm |
soundsurfer wrote:
Shane H wrote:
Greenwater (phytoplankton) ---> Rotifers (zooplankton) ---> Corals / Fish
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Greenwater(phytoplankton) ----> Rotifers (zooplankton) ---> Corals / fish (what we like)-----> Rock crabs/ mantis shrimp/ (what we hope we don't have) ------> Tweezers/traps/toilets (where we send them) |
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Sculpin
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Posted: September 12 2008 at 10:24pm |
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LOL. I had found a mantis about a month ago, it really wasn't that hard to catch him, I just had to poke the crap out of him with a make shift harpoon till he swam into a waiting net. Good luck though.
Sculpin
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