lets talk phyto!

[spamreefnew]

Well a few weeks ago while out buying some food at the lfs I bought a bottle of DT's phyto just to try it out. After reading the bottle and after paying ten dollars for this tiny little bottle I decided that I would try to culture It at home. Well here it is weeks later and I have about 3 gallons of dark green water bubbling away in the basement. I have been adding an ounce of phyto to my tank every day now. I have not seen any big change in anything although I do seem to see a few extra ampipods and My green toadstool leather does appear to be a touch larger. BUT I also started dosing vinegar about 3 weeks ago....Now I am left to wonder if what I am seeing is due to the phyto OR due to the extra bacteria?? I would love to hear form those of you that have or do dose phyto and what your opinion of it is. I ask because in order to culture phyto You have to run an extra light,and that costs money! my electric bill is enough already so no need to add to it if the phyto will not make a big change.

[Allmost]

thats the problem with making 2 changes at once, you will not know what did what ...

no body can tell you the answer to be honest, each system is different, and respond different to different additives.

[spamreefnew]

ok then lets put it this way,,,what corals benefit from adding phyto? And is there any proof that things such as soft corals eat phyto?

[behlke]

I cannot name any corals that eat phyto. But the amphipods and copepods in your tank love it, and they are eaten by everything else in your aquarium.I feed phytoplankton to my aquarium as a means to support the pod population in my aquarium, which lets my fish and corals eat all day when they want, instead of when I feed them.

[MondoBongo]

i'm culturing phyto to feed a different culture of pods.

so far i've been really pleased with how simple it's been to get the phyto going. i actually haven't bothered with an additional light, i just sat the bottles in a window that gets good natural light most of the day.

it remains to be seen how well this will work in winter with shorter daylight hours though

[mikecc67548]

Zooplankton? Is that what we are looking for? Zooplankton are larger than phytoplankton (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-07/eb/index.php)

[dkeller_nc]

It is not clear (yet) from scientific studies whether or not corals directly benefit from ingesting phytoplankton. What is clear (from scientific studies) is that corals are capable of ingesting small algal cells - many species capture their zooxanthellae directly from the water column when they settle, and there is some evidence that mature, bleached corals can re-aquire zooxanthellae from the water column.

So I would say the jury is still out on direct benefit to corals. However, what is not in doubt is that natural reefs are bathed in the stuff, and many animals that some (including me) consider desirable in their tanks do actually depend on it. Some of those animals, in addition to the afore-mentioned zooplankton such as copepods, rotifers, and amphipods are sponges, bryozoans, and feather dusters.

To that end, I dose about 1/2 teaspoon of concentrated phyto (Phyto Feast) into about 70 gallons nightly after lights-out. Additional feeds are oyster feast (about 1/8th of a teaspoon in the same volume), R.O.E. for the larger polyped corals, and cultured copepods, rotifers and artemia.

This is a big change from reefing in the early nineties - it was dang near impossible to keep sponges, feather dusters, gorgonians and certain coral species like goniopora alive during that time when virtually no food of plankton sizes were commonly added to reefs.