Phytoplankton question

[skozzy]

How can I accelerate the growth of that yummy green stuff ? I currently have
it in white 5 litre buckets and one 33watt fluro over the top, it grows
well, but slow. If I empty 1/2 a bucket into the tank and top the bucket
back off with tank water it takes about 1 week to get back to where it
started from.

[Pszemol]

"skozzy" > wrote in message u...
> How can I accelerate the growth of that yummy green stuff ? I currently have
> it in white 5 litre buckets and one 33watt fluro over the top, it grows
> well, but slow. If I empty 1/2 a bucket into the tank and top the bucket
> back off with tank water it takes about 1 week to get back to where it
> started from.

It is normal. The way you make more frequent feedings is to multiply
number of culture vessels. If you had 3-4 same buckets you could rotate
feeding the way you empty 1/2 of each bucket every day and let it
stand for other 4 days to grow and feed from the other buckets.

Also, your tank water may be not fertile enough. Do you use fertilizer?

[skozzy]

Not this time around because I am directly feeding the tank and not
filtering out the plankton. Last time I tried fertilizer everything rapidly
changed to sea weed. I will try it out tho on one bucket. I do have 4
buckets going at one time. Even tho the bucket shows very green water, when
it is added to the tank you can barely notice a change of colour to the
water if at all, is that normal ?



"Pszemol" > wrote in message
...
> "skozzy" > wrote in message
u...
> > How can I accelerate the growth of that yummy green stuff ? I currently
have
> > it in white 5 litre buckets and one 33watt fluro over the top, it grows
> > well, but slow. If I empty 1/2 a bucket into the tank and top the bucket
> > back off with tank water it takes about 1 week to get back to where it
> > started from.
>
> It is normal. The way you make more frequent feedings is to multiply
> number of culture vessels. If you had 3-4 same buckets you could rotate
> feeding the way you empty 1/2 of each bucket every day and let it
> stand for other 4 days to grow and feed from the other buckets.
>
> Also, your tank water may be not fertile enough. Do you use fertilizer?

[Pszemol]

"skozzy" > wrote in message u...
> Not this time around because I am directly feeding the tank and not
> filtering out the plankton. Last time I tried fertilizer everything rapidly
> changed to sea weed. I will try it out tho on one bucket. I do have 4
> buckets going at one time.

The reason you do not get enough growth is that the water from
your tank is not fertile. You barely have any nitrates, phosphates.
Not mentioning other elements needed for algae to growth.
Best growth you will get with special fertilizer formula to grow
unicellular algae, not the one to fertilize your garden plants :-)
You can get this fertilizer in many places supplying to aquaculture.

The problem with home-growing algae is that it is very hard to
balance between algae which lacks nutritional value due to the incorrect
fertilizing and a green water containing a lot of fertilizer, polluting
your tank with every feeding. Commercial aquacultures do clean produced
algae concentrating them (centrifuge) and flushing with clean water,
doing that will removing remains of fertilizer from the green water and
prevents polluting tank with iron and other metals algae did not finish
"eating" from the fertilizer. Also, commercially grown algae will have
good nutrition quality due to correct fertilization and harvesting
in the best time, when algae cells are not too old yet...

For these reasons I moved out of growing algae at home to buying
commercially available live algae concentrates like Instant Algae(TM)
or Shellfish Diet (TM) available in www.reed-mariculture.com
- Good stuff.
A $20 bottle will last months, it is very concentrated and clean.

> Even tho the bucket shows very green water, when it is added
> to the tank you can barely notice a change of colour to the
> water if at all, is that normal ?

Yes, it is called dilution :-)
There is not enough algae concentration in your "bucket"
to make your tank water green after adding bucket content.

[Richard Reynolds]

first are you using 1 and only 1 type of phyto or are you still using some "ocean" water
as the source, if its a single strain which one is it.

is your culture clean?? howd you clean it??

5L seems to me to be about 1.3 US GAL.
toss the 33w NO bulb get an incandescent "plant" bulb
to get good growth you will need to feed it the right stuff so get real fertalizer look
for guillard or provasoli the rest of the #'s indicate strength and not formulation ex.
guillards f/2 is 1/2 full strength f/4 is 1/4 full.
for a small cutlure try a 3hour on 1 hour off light schedule that doesnt always work but
when it does its better.
you also need to keep the algae growing old algae doesnt divide fast, a good culture of
nano. will double in 2.5 days

--
Richard Reynolds

[skozzy]

I currently have a blend if I got it right, 1st batch was from Real sea
water left in a bucket for weeks outside, 2nd batch come from a fresh water
tank at my sisters place, 3rd batch come from my fresh water tank when the
old water was left in a bucket for a week outside. They have all been mixed
together by now, and have been used, diluted, refilled with new water time
after time now for many weeks.

It's not clean, because I have the buckets sitting under a fluoro light down
stairs the occasional bug lands in the water, being a single cell thing I
can't imagine filtering it via a cloth, so it gets put in the tank as is.

I was going to try a Grow Lux light (a fluoro recommended here for growing
plants in fresh water) and see how that works.

I did put a mix in a 1 foot cubed glass tank and put a heater in there set
to 30deg'C, this tank is pressed up against the current 33w cool white
fluoro, and the water in that set-up has more then doubled in colour in 2
days, so the light being closer has helped and I guess the temperature too
(Nights have been below 10deg'C).

After reading about the nitrates helping and phosphates I figured I start
using the water from all my tank as each one is slightly different from each
other, so I will see what happens there over the next few days.

But the Extra lighting and Temperature raising has helped a lot.


> first are you using 1 and only 1 type of phyto or are you still using some
"ocean" water
> as the source, if its a single strain which one is it.
>
> is your culture clean?? howd you clean it??
>
> 5L seems to me to be about 1.3 US GAL.
> toss the 33w NO bulb get an incandescent "plant" bulb
> to get good growth you will need to feed it the right stuff so get real
fertalizer look
> for guillard or provasoli the rest of the #'s indicate strength and not
formulation ex.
> guillards f/2 is 1/2 full strength f/4 is 1/4 full.
> for a small cutlure try a 3hour on 1 hour off light schedule that doesnt
always work but
> when it does its better.
> you also need to keep the algae growing old algae doesnt divide fast, a
good culture of
> nano. will double in 2.5 days
>
> --
> Richard Reynolds
>
>
>