Sediment in phytoplankton cultures

[djkms]

What is this sediment in my phytoplankton cultures? Usually the dead cells accumulate in the dimples and they are clear or yellow. In my last split they are now really dark and end up floating around in the culture container. Before the dead cells would just stick to the dimples. Could it be the heat? Not sure what to do, in the vessels that have the most sediment is also the lightest green. It is more in the nanno then tetra but is in both cultures. I have a 53micron filter, should I run my cultures through that and use a new container? I also see a bit of it in my glass jars which I just started using yesterday. Is this the begining of a crash? btw this is 1 day after split. I usually dont see buildup for 4-5 days.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/Dr_digitaL/IMAG0214.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/Dr_digitaL/IMAG0218.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/Dr_digitaL/IMAG0219.jpg

["Umm, fish?"]

Well, I'm not a phyto guy (other than the fact that I can crash them like nobody's business), but two things come to mind: 1. You have a contaminant, maybe an algae. 2. Things are dying in there and getting stuck on the bottom or sides. Honestly, it looks like every culture I run after a couple of days. Theoretically, you should be able to separate your phyto from contaminants with the right sizes of screens. Practically (in my case at least), doing that will introduce more contaminants than you had in the first place.

I would suggest keeping them going. But I would start worrying about getting new starters. And, honestly, this is the reason that I don't try to culture phyto any longer.

Good luck!

[papagimp]

agree with Umm, back when I was culturing phyto I seemed to always have algae start to grow in my bottles. I'd regularly toss out the old bottles and start new ones with new cultures but always seemed to get it back again. I never worried too much about it as long as my culture densities were fine.