I culture my own live phytoplankton. Although some may argue that it is unnecessary, and time consuming, I find it to be useful for many fish rearing applications.
This is how I do it:
Materials:
Shelving: cheap plastic shelves from the discount store are fine
Light: a single 40 watt shop light is all I use, the fixture I scavanged from a remodel, two jobs ago.
Light timer.
Two liter soda bottles, clear, rinsed, at least a dozen. Drill a hole in the cap to accommodate rigid thin airline tubing. Collect some extra caps that remain undrilled.
Rigid airline tubing
Flexible airline tubing
airline valves
air pump, a small hobby pump is fine
Starter disc or culture
Guillard's f/2 or equivalent, NOT Miracle Gro
ordinary, plain 5.5% bleach
Sodium Thiosulphate, 6% solution in chlorine free tap water
Chlorine test strips from the Petco
Half gallon plastic milk jug
large funnel
plastic transfer pipet
Large container with about 6 gallons saltwater, 20ppt, can be leftover used water from a water change. Filter thru 100 micron filter before use, dilute to 20ppt with chlorine free tap water (don't use amquel or equivalent to achieve this, carbon filter instead, or just aerate for a couple of days).
Sterilizing the bottles:
Using the funnel, fill each soda bottle 2/3 full with the 20 ppt saltwater. This is most easily accomplished by cutting out the top of the milk jug, retaining the handle, until when submerged and lifted out of a container of water, about 1.33 liters of water is contained. Then simply pour contents into the funnel and into a single bottle. Repeat with all the other bottles.
Add 8 drops bleach to each bottle. Cap, shake to coat all surfaces, and store each bottle until use.
Let it sit on the shelf at least overnight before you use it. This process sterilizes the bottle and the water at the same time, and is especially important if you are recycling water change water.
Propagation:
When you want to propagate a dense culture, or start a new one from a disc,
- add 10 drops Sodium Thiosulfate (6%),
- add about a ml of f/2 (or whatever the instructions say. This varies with the version of f/2 you are using) to each bottle you want to use.
- Top up the bottle with the dense culture of phyto, or add the contents of a disc (see instructions on disc) if you are just starting out.
- Insert a rigid airline through the hole in the cap, attach to a pump via flex airline and a valve, and start the air flow, not too much. Leave the cap on loosely so air can escape from the bottle.
- Set in front of the light and wait a week.
The culture will get darker, and in a week's time, roughly, you will have a nice dense culture that can then be propagated by pouring a third of it into a prepared bottle as above. The two thirds remaining can be used to feed your pods, clams, filter feeders, brine shrimp, rotifers, or fish larvae (via the rotifers).
About fertilizer:
When I started out, I tried the Miracle Gro method of phytoplankton culture. It did not work for me, in fact adding MG to saltwater immediately caused a precipitation reaction in my water. In general it is not wise to use a terrestrial plant fertilizer for marine microalgae, and since MG is no cheaper than Guillard's f/2, there is no reason to use the inappropriate thing. f/2 has all the right nutrients for healthy phytoplankton, and that is what I use.
About non-live phytoplankton preparations:
Concentrated dead phytoplankton can be purchased economically, and has many advantages over home grown live phytoplankton in some applications. For some breeders, live phyto is completely unnecessary, and they rely on purchased concentrated microalgae. I use both purchased concentrate and the live stuff routinely, depending on what I am doing. Instant Algae feeds my rotifer cultures, because I need so many rots that I could never culture enough phyto to keep them nutritious for the fish larvae that feed upon them. However, for ammonia sensitive cultures of slow feeding pods, or sparsely populated rotifers, or clownfish larval culture, live phyto works well for me, and I prefer it. Some people consider culturing phyto to be a chore, but I find it to be a pleasant few minutes a week. Still, it is good to know I have concentrated phyto stashed in the freezer when I need it.
Suppliers of live cultures, culturing supplies, and concentrated phytoplankton:
www.reed-maricuture.comwww.florida-aqua-farms.comwww.brineshrimpdirect.com
www.essentiallivefeeds.com
For additional information on copepods, or to purchase some:
www.livecopepods.com
www.oceanpods.comFor the best books with great information on fish breeding see the Support MOFIB page:
www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/support.phpIt won't cost you more, but if you purchase books through this site, you help to support the following:
For the best discussions of the trials and tribulations of marine ornamental fish and invertebrate breeding (MOFIB) with breeders from all over the world, see Kathy's favorite, the MOFIB website forum:
www.marinebreeder.org