phytoplanton reactor

[EFRAIN TORRES]

i planing to buy a phytoplanton reactor nedd advise

[Orion76]

What organism are you planning to feed the phyto plankton to? AFAIK acro don't eat it

[EFRAIN TORRES]

planning to feed sps

[Orion76]

planning to feed sps

Save your money, SPS are mostly carnivores, you don't need this reactor

[EFRAIN TORRES]

what food recomended for sps

[gqjeff]

Pohls coral vitalizer and the mulm from the stones...

[EFRAIN TORRES]

in nature dont have pohl vitalizer i think they ate zooplanton or phytoplanton

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

what food recomended for sps

Your interest in feeding live foods runs parallel to my own philosophy. There are lots of choices ...

SPS prey that remain relatively suspended in the water column ... these include bacteria, diatoms (... with their associated silicon issues ... beware ...), phytoplankton, rotifers, and zooplankton (stuff like zooflagellates, and the various larval stages of copepods).

SPS prey which, while introduced through the water column, quickly becomes associated with a surface within the ecosystem ... bacteria, bacterial aggregates, nematodes, ciliates, zooflagellates, and larval stages of copepods.

While some of this stuff may seem exotic, most are readily available (... witrh a little effort and research ...), and others can be cultured from specimens which are probably already in your ecosystem ... assuming that you started out with healthy, properly cured live rock.

Save your money, SPS are mostly carnivores, you don't need this reactor

Mostly? ... perhaps, but that's not exclusively, yes? I would submit that the database of an exact SPS prey menu, correlated to specific SPS genera and species, is still being assembled. It's not at all clear to me which prey I should be culturing for which specific SPS ... so maybe empowering the zooplankton guilds within our systems is the best we can do, unitl better literature emerges. A phytoplankton reactor ... used properly ... could be very useful and economical. JMO.

... phytoplanton reactor ...

It seems to me that this depends on what srategies you're trying to pursue. While phytoplankton can be delivered to coral guts via mucal net mechanisms, I'm not so sure that this is their primary benefit, in terms of "coral feeding." Over time, regular dosing of phytoplankton (... with care taken not to dose in excess ..) will serve as the primary food source for zooplankton guilds within the ecosystem. So, yeah, phytoplankton may not be the primary food themselves, but their addition will drive the productivity of a zooplankton guild, making the zooplankton available as directly fed prey items.

Additionally, you might wish to consider multiple applications for a phytoplankton reactor ... the phyto produced are excellent food items for separate cultures of rotifers, brine shrimp and copepods. Managing your own phytoplankton reactor will allow you to pursue "gut loading" strategies for enriching the nutrient profile of whatever prey item they are fed to ... along with other potential supplements like astaxanthin, beta glucan, and beta carotene (... I won't EVEN get into the potential amino acid and vitamin combinations). One of the serious advantages ofg operating a phytoplankton reactor is that you can "tweak" the phytoplankton's culture medium without "contaminating" your main system.

Also, be aware that the nutritional profile of different phytoplankton varies significantly, as does the effect of culturing temperature on a phytoplankton's final nutrient profile.

in nature dont have pohl vitalizer i think they ate zooplanton or phytoplanton

ROTFL ... hehe ...


Indeed ... and yet, the apparent stimulatory effect of CV could be timed to maximize polyp extension (... increased surface area, and maybe mucus net production ...) such that you'd get maximum efficiency from whatever live cultures you introduce (not to mention the additional nutritional value of the CV itself).



EFRAIN ... if you'd like to discuss culturing strategies in more detail, please consider starting a new thread in the Advanced Topics forum ... the chemistry can get a little "interesting". Also ... there are some "technique" and apparatus prerequisites involved in the culturing of live foods. If folks think that just letting some phyto grow in a 2L coke bottle is producing the same type of nutritional value as naturally occurring phytoplankton ... well ... I would respectfully disagree.


JMO ... HTH

[gqjeff]

Gary, you always make me.... :biggthump

Jeff

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !


For the record, the documentation of reef-building corals consuming phytoplankton goes back quite a ways ...

On the Feeding of Some Scleractinian Corals with Bacteria and Dissolved Organic Matter
Yu. I. Sorokin
Limnology and Oceanography, Vol. 18, No. 3 (May, 1973) , pp. 380-385

Abstract

Feeding experiments were carried out with 6 species of common scleractinian reef-building corals from reefs of the Bismarck Archipelago. Their ability to utilize planktonic bacteria and dissolved organic matter (protein hydrolyzate) as food was demonstrated by using radiocarbon. The amount of organic carbon assimilated per day by animals given labeled food at concentrations approaching those found in situ was equivalent to 10-20% of the carbon content of the polyp's body. The rate of consumption and assimilation of some planktonic algae by corals was much lower. ...

View Article Abstract

View Enlarged Page ... recommended.

FYI

[Miguelito]

mesocosm, you are one of only a few people that I ALWAYS read posts from beginning to end.

I was thinking of a Grotech phytoreactor also - since I like oversized skimmers, and I do not have a DSB. Zooplankton feed on on phytoplankton (assumption?). Skimmers deplete phytoplankton (assumption). My "pod" and "other small life" population is MUCH less since I took out my SB.

Plus its another really cool toy to play with. ;-)

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

... Zooplankton feed on on phytoplankton (assumption?). ...

No assumption ... fact. At the "base" of any rich zooplankton guild are autotrophs ... phytoplankton and cyanobacteria. Not that there aren't a whole host of others populating the "base" as well ... non-photosynthetic bacteria, chemolithotrophs, heterotrophs ... et cetera. More technically, "primary producers."

... Skimmers deplete phytoplankton (assumption). ...

Generally speaking ... yes, but there is typically an "upper limit" to the size of particles that a protein skimmer will efficiently remove. But as a "general concept" ... yep ... big, powerful protein skimmers are sucking out phytoplankton from the water column.

... My "pod" and "other small life" population is MUCH less since I took out my SB. ...

This is my experience with BB systems as well ... and for a straightforward reason: SBs store nutrients and provide microhabitats for the zooplankton, as well as the autotrophs upon which the zooplankton feed.

I was thinking of a Grotech phytoreactor also ...

Does GroTech make a way cool phyto toy ... or what?



"Clean look", efficient, productive, eloquent design ... ... and a price tag to match ...


A couple of years ago I actually participated (... briefly ...) in Dr. Shimek's Deep Sand Beds: Theory and Practice online course through RC. Great stuff ... with an extraordinary set of peer-reviewed reference materials (so extensive that it was well worth the price of admission, despite my premature departure from the course). One of the things that I came away with was this: Despite the fact that an oligotrophic water column is a "desert", in terms of dissolved chemical nutrients, that same oligotrophic water column can be fantastically enriched with biochemically sequestered nutrients ... "live food". Bacteria, bacterial aggregrations, bacterial aggregations "associated" with particulate organic matter, picoplankton, nanoplankton, microplankton, diatoms, ciliates, phytoplankton, zooflagellates, eggs, zoea, larvae ... the list goes on ... in concentrations of 80,000 to 200,000+ cells/particles per milliliter (dependent upon latitude ... sunlight "drives" the autotrophs which are at the "base" of the entire zooplankton guild. If anyone thinks that the most photosynthetically productive regions of the world's oceans are clustered around the equator ... well ... they need to think again).

Not surprisingly, I've had a bizzare fascination/obssession with the culture and application of of live marine microorganisms ... and the conditions which must be present in our ecosystems to sustain them (without impacting coral coloration) ... ever since. There's a reason that I refer to our aquaria as captive ecosystems.

It's why ... when everyone else is showing off amazing pictures of their tanks, complete with awesome images of their SPS specimens' polyp extension and coloration ... I'm sitting in my own little corner of cyberspace, staring at my computer monitor in a glazed semi-disorientation, muttering repeatedly," ... bio ... film ... the biofilm ... really ... listen to me ... it's all about the biofilm."

Life is strange, yes? ...



JMO ... HTH

[majesticangelfish]

mesocosm, you are one of only a few people that I ALWAYS read posts from beginning to end.

Me too!

[OUinLA]

You can just use a plastic bottle of some sort with airline dripping into your tank (siphon) place a valve on the end of the air line so you can control it. you can add both zoo and phyto with this. Be sure to either change out the bottle often or clean it thoroughly (bleach then dechlorinate). hth

[Orion76]

That's the AquaMedic one.