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My plankton culture station


Cookiemunster
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And heres the result of my last harvest 2 days ago.

I now dose 500ml of live phyto daily into my tank. Most noticeable growths are the coco worms and copepod populations.

Nice harvest.....look like those watercress drinks in Bangkok, or sugar cane juice....just make sure you label them well! ;):lol::lol:

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Nice harvest.....look like those watercress drinks in Bangkok, or sugar cane juice....just make sure you label them well! ;):lol::lol:

hahaha yeah I can't wait to give my visitors some nourishing drinks. hehe ;)

Heres a side shot of my humble tank. If only I had more sea fans I'm sure they would love the plankton.

Roidan nice seafan in your avatar.

post-18-1075210763.jpg

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hahaha yeah I can't wait to give my visitors some nourishing drinks. hehe ;)

Heres a preview shot of my tank. If only I had more sea fans I'm sure they would love the plankton.

Roidan nice seafan in your avatar.

Remind me not to accept any drinks not from an unopened can the next time I come to visit! :lol::lol::lol:

Intelligent people talk about ideas......

Average people talk about things......

Small people talk about other people......

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Actually all the info is provided already by bawater in his lengthy and detailed article. But here I will just add on some of the items you will find most useful to have.

A water funnel for pouring harvest into coke bottles, a measuring beaker, a bottle of florida farms fertiliser (1 drop per 100ml of salt mix), a secchi stick for measuring density of plankton culture ( the ruler like thingie), freshly made salt mix (make sure its clean and not from your tank), empty coke bottles (any other drink will do too but coke flavoured plankton seems most appetizing) :lol:

Oh and you see the note book there? Its not for writing down 4D or toto numbers......its useful for writing down when you started the culture, how much sg is the salt mix, how many drops of fertilizer added....when is the next harvest etc etc. Only then can you perfect the process....ok ok I have poor memory. <_<

post-18-1075211207.jpg

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using the mutli strain DT now can do it ah.... that time i heard only the mono strain DT in the past can, now the multi strain got problems in culturing..

but i guess u managed to do it :) congrats :bow:

Yup, I was using my DTs and it was running out....so I decided what the heck....may as well give it a try. Its actually very simple if you know what you are doing.

But for the rest who can't be bothered, DT is a really good thing to add to your tank. Especially if its an LPS softie tank. I'm not so sure if it benefits SPS though.

Dosing plankton has to be done slowly. I started with DT using 5ml every day, then 10ml every day, then 20 ml every other day for 1 month then switched to live phyto 250ml daily for 2 weeks then 500ml daily now. If you push it too fast, say hello to Miss Cyano and Mr Diatom. Which is exactly as bawater suggested.

In multistrain DT, the most resiliant plankton will be cultivated, which is the nannochloropsis. One way to tell is if your culture has golden brown sediments and water is deep green. The other way is if you have a x1200 microscope. By the way does anyone have a digital microscope? I have been sourcing for a cheap one but the cheapest I could find was a QX3

(used to be intel) toy digital microscope. Another really neat microscope is the Olympus MIC-D...gosh if anyone has this one pls let me see it. Ok anyway sorry got carried away.

Day: My culture measures 2 to 2.5 cm on the secchi stick so I guess its potent enough. But it will never be as potent as DT as they use some special technique to remove more water and hence much higher concentration.

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The photo shop in Giant at Parkway Parade has the oly scope - remember asking for the price once and it was like about a thousand - a bit overpriced for it's specs, I thought.

I have the QX3 and now being used by my son....sometimes...OK quality only although there are mods you can do to improve the image quality. Quite a neat toy overall and not too ex - I think I paid about $100 each for them (bought 3!) through various online vendors and ebay (they were not available here then).

Intelligent people talk about ideas......

Average people talk about things......

Small people talk about other people......

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The photo shop in Giant at Parkway Parade has the oly scope - remember asking for the price once and it was like about a thousand - a bit overpriced for it's specs, I thought.

I have the QX3 and now being used by my son....sometimes...OK quality only although there are mods you can do to improve the image quality. Quite a neat toy overall and not too ex - I think I paid about $100 each for them (bought 3!) through various online vendors and ebay (they were not available here then).

WOW BRO YOU HAVE IT?????

I read about the mods. I need to mod the condenser and add 150W fibre optic light to beef up the thing. The condenser improvement rocks. I was searching for it all over Toys R us but could not find it. AND YOU HAVE 3????? WOW!!!!

Time to get friendly with your kids. hehehehe. :evil:

Flubberina its really a good buy!! Get it!!! You can then safely ID what kind of plankton you are growing.

Right now bawater, morgan and myself are trying to grow 3 different strains. Tetraselmis, chloropsis and isocrysis.

And it would be great to take photos of coral tissues. wow imagine all the fun.....family photos of copepods, rotifers, coco worm feather, clam tissue, sps polyp, purple tank fin...hehehe :evil:

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hahaha I really dun know where to get one. Amazon doesn't sell it anymore and its no longer known as the QX3 under intel. Its now marketed by digital blue.

I think here is the best bet. Remember to get the + version as its an upgrade. In the meantime, marine betta is lending me his to play with. hahaha. I'm gonna mod the light to a 5W LED.

QX3+

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:(

Missed the ball again...I really gadget-idiot... :(

So many...which one you thinking off? The one I saw was on USD49.99 promotion during Xmas sale...Very big, that's why didn't consider much... :P

Ok this is it. It is selling US$46.95...and its the cheapest I found so far.

Look at bottom of page

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Ok this is it. It is selling US$46.95...and its the cheapest I found so far.

Look at bottom of page

The digital blue website you posted earlier has it for USD$45.49 ;)

OK, do the mods and if it works well, you can mod mine :D

Intelligent people talk about ideas......

Average people talk about things......

Small people talk about other people......

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Ah... the joys of culturing...been there, done that! Too bad I gave it up.... ;)

Gone too lazy already...hahaha.... my live rotifers are replaced by GPs, BBS by frozen Cyclop-eze, my live phtyo by DT's!

Keep it up man!! :D

AT

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