Hello!
For the second time I've recently started to culture phytoplankton to dose in my tank. I have clams, Christmas tree worms among others that would benefit from dosing phyto.
I did this for about a year ago, but couldn't be bothered to continue. I found there were too many manual elements in the upkeep. Also the dosing became irregular etc.
This time around I'm trying a more automatic setup. The general idea is to have an ongoing culture that I also use as an active dosing container (dosetronic).
From my experience with previous cultures it took me almost 2 weeks to reach the cultures peak (harvest) time. That's when I removed 50% and added fresh saltwater and fertilizer, and new loop of 2 weeks.
This time I'm planning to dose 50% of the total volume spread out over 2 weeks, and add fresh saltwater/fertilizer either
- bi-weekly, manually or
- daily, by dosing pump
This way I would eliminate building up a storage with dirty green bottles thay I need to shake shake shake, which I hate hate hate. I would also eliminate the manual dosing schedule from these refrigerated bottles, which I won't be able to upkeep.
But it has raised some concerns.
1. Have I done some practical errors in this that is downright stupid?
2. Should I refill every day or just every second week? If I refill every second week the concentration of phyto will differ a lot from the dose on day one compared to day 14.
If I refill daily, is there any change in calculations of peak period?
3. How much (peak concentration) phyto culture would be relevant for my 400 litres system? sps dominated with a daily dose of around 300 ml balling classic
4. Last but not least, as the topic of this post, does anyone know if there will be any long term negative effects of f2 fertilizer media getting dosed in the tank (since its dosing from an active culture)??
PS. I plan to downsize the container. Bigger one in the beginning to have a few bottled cultures as a spare
Thanks in advance for all possible input on this setup!
For the second time I've recently started to culture phytoplankton to dose in my tank. I have clams, Christmas tree worms among others that would benefit from dosing phyto.
I did this for about a year ago, but couldn't be bothered to continue. I found there were too many manual elements in the upkeep. Also the dosing became irregular etc.
This time around I'm trying a more automatic setup. The general idea is to have an ongoing culture that I also use as an active dosing container (dosetronic).
From my experience with previous cultures it took me almost 2 weeks to reach the cultures peak (harvest) time. That's when I removed 50% and added fresh saltwater and fertilizer, and new loop of 2 weeks.
This time I'm planning to dose 50% of the total volume spread out over 2 weeks, and add fresh saltwater/fertilizer either
- bi-weekly, manually or
- daily, by dosing pump
This way I would eliminate building up a storage with dirty green bottles thay I need to shake shake shake, which I hate hate hate. I would also eliminate the manual dosing schedule from these refrigerated bottles, which I won't be able to upkeep.
But it has raised some concerns.
1. Have I done some practical errors in this that is downright stupid?
2. Should I refill every day or just every second week? If I refill every second week the concentration of phyto will differ a lot from the dose on day one compared to day 14.
If I refill daily, is there any change in calculations of peak period?
3. How much (peak concentration) phyto culture would be relevant for my 400 litres system? sps dominated with a daily dose of around 300 ml balling classic
4. Last but not least, as the topic of this post, does anyone know if there will be any long term negative effects of f2 fertilizer media getting dosed in the tank (since its dosing from an active culture)??
Phyto culture
youtube.com
PS. I plan to downsize the container. Bigger one in the beginning to have a few bottled cultures as a spare
Thanks in advance for all possible input on this setup!