Culturing DT's phytoplankton at home

Discussion in 'General Reef Topics' started by skennelly, Aug 15, 2005.

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  1. skennelly

    skennelly Coral Banded Shrimp

    Joined:
    Nov 16, 2004
    Messages:
    385
    Location:
    Illinois
    Does anybody culture their own DT's phytoplankton at home? Is it possible to take an existing bottle of DT's and break it up into different cultures and then grow them out?
     
    skennelly, Aug 15, 2005
    skennelly, Aug 15, 2005
    #1

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  2. Jay

    Jay Teardrop Maxima Clam

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2004
    Messages:
    826
    You can buy kits to do this. Its a lot of work for this though. I just buy phyto from a vender that I got from ebay. He shipps it to me with cold packs. Its not as good as buying it fresh overnight but its probably close. I also use spray dried phyto that comes with about 5 other products mixed togather in this stuff called reef chili. I also use those frozen rotifer cubes. Does all this work?...who knows but I have plenty of sponges and fauna in my tank.

    I have never tryed making my own.

    Heres a great link for you to see about it.

    http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html

    Your welcome

    Jay
     
    Jay, Aug 15, 2005
    Jay, Aug 15, 2005
    #2
  3. Covey

    Covey Scooter Blennie

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    Aug 6, 2004
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    1,219
    Location:
    Davenport IA
    You can really can't culture DT's at home in that it have multiple species of micro algae. It would be possibly to start one but it would very likely crash because on the competitions between the algae.
     
    Covey, Aug 16, 2005
    Covey, Aug 16, 2005
    #3
  4. Covey

    Covey Scooter Blennie

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    Location:
    Davenport IA
    Covey, Aug 16, 2005
    Covey, Aug 16, 2005
    #4
  5. rayjay

    rayjay Gigas Clam

    Joined:
    Jun 8, 2004
    Messages:
    886
    Location:
    London, ON, Canada
    When DT's first came out, I bought a bottle and then kept cultures going for a year or so, but it was a PITA, so I quit that and now I use Brine Shrimp Direct's Tahitian Blend.
    Some time ago, I saw a thread somewhere that said DT's was different now and couldn't be used as a starter culture any more. Probably had too many people buying one lot and then not needing any more so they fixed it to make you buy their product again.
    There is still a page on my website with a picture of my phyto culture set up.
     
    rayjay, Aug 16, 2005
    rayjay, Aug 16, 2005
    #5