Phytoplankton 24hr light cycle

[reefsaver]

I was just wondering if anyone has cultured their phyto under 24/7 light.
I’ve seen the average light cycles people use is 12-12 or 16 on - 8 off.
It’s not essential to turn off lights for some terrestrial plants although it can be beneficial for the substrate biomes I’ve read. But that’s terrestrial plants and they do grow fine under 24/7 artificial lighting.
The main reason I ask is it objectively speeds things up depending on circumstance for some terrestrial plants. Is there any big reasons why this isn’t done with Phytoplankton I might be wrong but I assume Phyto is more straight forward as the media in majority of cases is always salt water, as opposed to soilless, soil, inert media, etc which all plays a role to some degree but usually depending on the terrestrial plant it will be totally fine under 24/7 light provided it’s watered to compensate.
Anyway my question is does anyone light phyto 24hours? Because I’m assuming if someone was successfully doing that, they would be growing more phyto per batch faster. I might be wrong just looking for advice.

 

[hunterallen40]

I was just wondering if anyone has cultured their phyto under 24/7 light.
I’ve seen the average light cycles people use is 12-12 or 16 on - 8 off.
It’s not essential to turn off lights for some terrestrial plants although it can be beneficial for the substrate biomes I’ve read. But that’s terrestrial plants and they do grow fine under 24/7 artificial lighting.
The main reason I ask is it objectively speeds things up depending on circumstance for some terrestrial plants. Is there any big reasons why this isn’t done with Phytoplankton I might be wrong but I assume Phyto is more straight forward as the media in majority of cases is always salt water, as opposed to soilless, soil, inert media, etc which all plays a role to some degree but usually depending on the terrestrial plant it will be totally fine under 24/7 light provided it’s watered to compensate.
Anyway my question is does anyone light phyto 24hours? Because I’m assuming if someone was successfully doing that, they would be growing more phyto per batch faster. I might be wrong just looking for advice.

No, in my experience some strains require a dark period (e.g. rhodomonas).

I've heard success can be had with nannos on a 24 hour cycle, but I don't do this for mine.

I also have seen some experimental data that reported 16-8 providing the best density, but I cannot find that link unfortunately.

I do 16-8 on all our cultures, and it seems to work quite well!

 

[reefsaver]

No, in my experience some strains require a dark period (e.g. rhodomonas).

I've heard success can be had with nannos on a 24 hour cycle, but I don't do this for mine.

I also have seen some experimental data that reported 16-8 providing the best density, but I cannot find that link unfortunately.

I do 16-8 on all our cultures, and it seems to work quite well!

Thank you for this response I really appreciate it. I will set my lights to 16-8.
I was wondering if yeah people had better yields or density if they decided not to turn the light off.
But then I don't really understand Phyto to be honest. In my head I would think as long as you're providing the Phyto nutrients, it's being titrated and light is fuelling it's growth, it would just keep growing getting more and more dense. Although this might give Algae a bigger chance of growing and maybe a contaminant crashing the culture making it not worth it. Yeah just brainstorming I guess. If someone say is culturing Phyto for business and is capable of producing highly sterile environments then I was thinking they could probably have a chance at doing it and getting high densities but this directly correlates to my assumption that a 24 hour cycle would produce higher densities or bigger yields of Phytoplankton, in shorter amounts of time. It's totally hypothetical from my end though because I have no idea what I'm talking about lol.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I was just wondering if anyone has cultured their phyto under 24/7 light.
I’ve seen the average light cycles people use is 12-12 or 16 on - 8 off.
It’s not essential to turn off lights for some terrestrial plants although it can be beneficial for the substrate biomes I’ve read. But that’s terrestrial plants and they do grow fine under 24/7 artificial lighting.
The main reason I ask is it objectively speeds things up depending on circumstance for some terrestrial plants. Is there any big reasons why this isn’t done with Phytoplankton I might be wrong but I assume Phyto is more straight forward as the media in majority of cases is always salt water, as opposed to soilless, soil, inert media, etc which all plays a role to some degree but usually depending on the terrestrial plant it will be totally fine under 24/7 light provided it’s watered to compensate.
Anyway my question is does anyone light phyto 24hours? Because I’m assuming if someone was successfully doing that, they would be growing more phyto per batch faster. I might be wrong just looking for advice.

People have run 24/7 light before, but whether or not that's ideal or leads to faster phyto growth depends on a ton of different factors: species, light spectrum, light intensity, temperature, nutrient levels, etc. (these listed ones are probably the most important, but others like pH, flow, and more will also play a role).

All of these factors influence growth rate, cell size, nutrition, sometimes color, etc. of a phytoplankton culture.


As an example to showcase this, low to moderate light intensity over a 24:0 (light:dark) photoperiod is likely going to show relatively higher growth than low to moderate light intensity over a 16:8 photoperiod, but high light intensity over a 24:0 photoperiod may actually result in slower growth than high light intensity over a 16:8 photoperiod.


These variables are why some people report higher yields/faster growth at one photoperiod and lower yields/slower growth at another, and why some people sometimes have conflicting reports on which photoperiod is better for a specific phytoplankton culture.

As a general rule, anywhere between 16:8 and 24:0 photoperiods are going to be the best, with 16:8 being the safer but possibly less productive option, dependent on the other factors. There are some exceptions to this rule, but they're the exceptions, not the norm.

 

[reefsaver]

People have run 24/7 light before, but whether or not that's ideal or leads to faster phyto growth depends on a ton of different factors: species, light spectrum, light intensity, temperature, nutrient levels, etc. (these listed ones are probably the most important, but others like pH, flow, and more will also play a role).

All of these factors influence growth rate, cell size, nutrition, sometimes color, etc. of a phytoplankton culture.


As an example to showcase this, low to moderate light intensity over a 24:0 (light:dark) photoperiod is likely going to show relatively higher growth than low to moderate light intensity over a 16:8 photoperiod, but high light intensity over a 24:0 photoperiod may actually result in slower growth than high light intensity over a 16:8 photoperiod.


These variables are why some people report higher yields/faster growth at one photoperiod and lower yields/slower growth at another, and why some people sometimes have conflicting reports on which photoperiod is better for a specific phytoplankton culture.

As a general rule, anywhere between 16:8 and 24:0 photoperiods are going to be the best, with 16:8 being the safer but possibly less productive option, dependent on the other factors. There are some exceptions to this rule, but they're the exceptions, not the norm.

Thank you for breaking that down in so much detail, super interesting. I hope people find this thread as valuable as I do and your insight is truly appreciated.

 

[hunterallen40]

Thank you for this response I really appreciate it. I will set my lights to 16-8.
I was wondering if yeah people had better yields or density if they decided not to turn the light off.
But then I don't really understand Phyto to be honest. In my head I would think as long as you're providing the Phyto nutrients, it's being titrated and light is fuelling it's growth, it would just keep growing getting more and more dense. Although this might give Algae a bigger chance of growing and maybe a contaminant crashing the culture making it not worth it. Yeah just brainstorming I guess. If someone say is culturing Phyto for business and is capable of producing highly sterile environments then I was thinking they could probably have a chance at doing it and getting high densities but this directly correlates to my assumption that a 24 hour cycle would produce higher densities or bigger yields of Phytoplankton, in shorter amounts of time. It's totally hypothetical from my end though because I have no idea what I'm talking about lol.

I will say I've seen less growth with my Rhodomonas in particular when I accidentally stretched the photoperiod to 22-2, but this is purely anecdotal. I think spectrum + intensity are definitely a factor as well. Would love to see some experimentation here! I don't have the space for more cultures at the moment, but would be happy to help someone get started if they wanted to do this if they wanted!

 

[CannaJake]

Also something to consider is circadian rhythm. Look up a video on YouTube about it. I spent years in the cannabis industry with my veg on 24 hours before a friend who runs another garden taught me about it and ultimately I learned I could produce healthier growth in 18/6 photoperiod then 24/7.