the best phytoplankton?

[droinablunt]

just wanted to know what type of phyto everyone uses and where to get it.

[Frogbone]

Phyto Feast at Ocean Devotion

[sea monkey]

hands down the best is to culture your own. If you feel that phyto is needed for whatever creature you want to keep, home cultured is better than any other option by a long shot.

what is the goal you hope to achieve by dosing phyto ?

[TekCat]

I like DT Phytoplankton. The only LIVE one out there. But, if I had space I'd culture my own. DT is quite pricey.

[droinablunt]

hands down the best is to culture your own. If you feel that phyto is needed for whatever creature you want to keep, home cultured is better than any other option by a long shot.

what is the goal you hope to achieve by dosing phyto ?

How does one go about starting a culture?

And I was feeding phyto for the lps and clam along with reef chili.

What else should I do to feed enchino and other lps?

[coralreefer]

Here is a site that will show you how to culture:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/aug2002/breeder.htm

I guess florida aqua farms is a good place to get starter cultures/nutrients, although i haven't tried it yet. It is rather expensive to start, so when in doubt, use DTs

I feed my Platygyra and Oulophyllia (lps) mysis or krill with selcon. LPS might not have much use for phyto, but copepods will.

[christensonjes]

The talkingreef podcast has a very good video and another audio on how to set up and maintain a phyto culture. It will tell you everything you need to know

[mattb]

Phyto feast isn't a live as they market..... there's a really good article on the DT website that he sent out phyto feast to an independent lab and found that it was all dead...

[TekCat]

Yep, very good article! Makes you think that we are really all suckers for a good advertisement.

[sea monkey]

IMHO if you are going to pay for live phyto like DT's you should have something really specific you want to achieve by dosing it . Not many corals utilize phyto directly and the ones that do don't necessarily "need" it. I personally wouldn't consistently use any product(food or chemical) that costs this much without knowing for sure what it is exactly that i want to achieve by using it and have some way of measuring if i am achieving that goal. I think many people dose phyto just because they heard about it somewhere and it seems like a good idea : )

However Phyto is the building block for all the organisms and if dosed consistently you can build up a large population of microfauna. because it is the building block for all the rest , if you skip a few days you have broken the food chain at it's base and the populations of the rest immedeatly die off and you start over. it could take a while to build up the population of each level of the food chain again, so if you miss a few days in a row every month it might be pointless to dose phyto for this purpose

while certainly beneficial I don't think the cost of the live products are worth the results that you get. culture your own for free and it could be well worth it : )

[epidemic]

pm churchboy on TRT, his name is meng, he is local, and he grows it

[mattb]

Think food webs.... phyto -> zooplankton -> other micro-organisms -> corals & fishes... I've never cultured, so if it's a lot of work... I'd rather pay $$$.

[droinablunt]

I think I am going to start a culture.

[smeese]

I would buy some from youif you are successful

[sea monkey]

can't remember where i saw it but i think there is such a thing as a phyto reactor that takes some of the work out of it.

[mattb]

I think you're right, there are commercial ones available. Just not sure of the quality/utility... it'd be nice if someone has had some experience with them to chime in....

[sea monkey]

looks like i was wrong , its just a fancy copy of a homemade one for $200
http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=AM-76009&Category_Code=