Dec 27th Dooms Day for Iso.

It's been a few days, but with Christmas I have been kinda busy so I have not had a chance to update. I hope you guys had a great Christmas, or other holiday you may celebrate!! So on with the updates. As the title states, my Iso culture has died. More like has been contaminated. It seems there has been some Nano getting into the culture through the airlines. A few days ago the Iso culture I started first started to go from clearish brown to green. I also noticed a green ring around where the air comes into the culture vessel. So apparently they were doomed from the start, so I flushed them. I am now focusing on the Nano and Rotifers I have growing. I had to split the Nano again since the last update. I know have enough to start using some for the tank, and Rotifers. I have moved the Rotifers into their new permanent home, a 1 gallon plastic jug. Each day it looks like I have twice as many as before. They are doing awesome, and wont be long until I have enough for the tank, and to start culturing some pods, and brine shrimp! I will be updating again in a few days. I included a picture of the Nano just before I split it. Notice how dark it is!

Day 9

As always, for now any way LOL, the Nano is doing awesome. Now both cultures are getting very dark again. I should have plenty of phyto for the Rotifers very soon. Today I almost had a bad day. While trying to get a picture of the Rotifers, I knocked the culture off the shelf. Luckily, somehow the bottle landed almost right side up. I lost a little bit from the bottle but not much. How that happen I could not tell you LOL. So, I still have Rotifers! I had to tranfer the small petri dish of Rotifers into a larger vessel today. I used a 500ml green tea bottle that happen to be the prefect size. I did that this moring and by the end of the evening the population looked like it doubled. These guys multiply quick!! I also started the new culture of Iso today. So far it is looking really good. A lot better than the first.

Day 8 The Split

The day finally came to split the culture! So I split the culture into two cultures today. On the next split, I will be splitting one jar and using the other to feed the corals and other inverts in my tank as well as the Rotifer culture. The new cultures should be ready for the next split in 7-8 days. I started prepairing the Iso culture disc today in hopes of getting this one to start up. Iso can be a little more difficult to start and maintain, so theres hope yet! I also started hatching the Rotifers two days ago. They have hatched, and I tranfered them into a 500ml container as the instructions said. I included a pic, although they just look like little dots. If you see them live the little dots actually swim in the water.

Day 7

Ok, the Nano culture is super dark now. just like its supposed to be. Tomorrow will be the first split for sure! The culture is so dark you cant even see the bubbles from the airline any more. It looks great. As far as the Iso goes I am starting to think it is dead. I added some more Micro Algae Grow like the instructions said, and it still has not changed. So I probably will be starting a new culture in the next few days.

Day 6

Just one more day to the split! The Nano is still getting darker so I may put it off another day. The manual says to do a split every 8 days, the people I have been talking with say every 6-8 days. Since this is the first split I may just wait another day. The Iso is looking about the same. I'm starting to think it may be dead LOL. The manual said it may take 2 weeks for it to take off, so I'm patently waiting. I also started the Rotifers today. It take 3 days to get them ready to start them to culture. Right now the cyst are hatching in a petri dish. They should be hatching in the next 24 hrs. I won't be posting any pictures of the Rotifers as they are just to small. Maybe once the culture starts I can get a pic of the entire culture.

Day 5

Again the Nano culture is darker. I think I got more than 50% growth today. Looks like everything is on track for the first split on Dec. 18. Once I get the first batch split, I probably will be slowing down on the post here, maybe to once a week. But until then, I'm doing a post every 1-2 days, with daily updates. Here is a pic of the Nano today. As you can see it is really starting to get dark. I also took a pic of the Iso culture. As you can see not much has changed. It is a little darker, but I don't think you can tell in the pic. I am also going by the manual, and starting the culture in about 500ml of water. That's why there isn't as much water as the Nano culture.

Day 4

Cool deal. My Nano culture is still getting darker each day. I would estimate about 50% darker each day. I am about 1/2 way until the first split. Once I get the cultures split I can start up my Rotifer culture. Thats a whole different ball game. But it is supposed to be an easier game. I just have to make sure to keep everything seperate. One Rotifer will turn in to two, then 4, so on and so on. So it doesn't take long until you have another Rotifer culture instead of a Nano culture. My Iso culture is slowly getting darker. I am assuming this is normal. Time will tell! I got a picture today to show how it is brown vs. green of the Nano. You can see the chunks of Iso in the water. According to the mannual this is normal. It is slowly breaking down, and growing. Hopefully it will be ready to split in about one more week.

Day 3

Alright, walked in to the "lab" today, first thing I noticed is how much darker my Iso culture has gotten. It is not close to being ready to split, but I could really tell the culture is growing. The Nano is probably 50% darker as well. So this means all is well I hope. I wish the Iso would show up better in the pictures. Once it really take off you should be able to see it quite well!

Day 2

Well it has now been near 48hrs. Both the Nano, and Iso cultures have darkend up like they are supposed to. The Nano more so than the Iso. No need to panic just yet, from what I have read Iso is a little more difficult to get going sometimes. Here is a picture from day 2 of the cultures.

Day 1

So I finally got around to starting my Phytoplankton culture. I ordered everything I needed from Florida Aqua Farms . They have pretty much everything you will need. I picked up some 2 quart plastic containers from Walmart. These will be used for my culture vessals. I'm not really going to get into how to culture Phyto on this blog. So, if you are interested in starting your own culture, I recommend going to Talking Reef . They have several shows (podcast, and vids) on Phytoplankton. They can really explain how to start, and grow your own culture. So with that, I started 2 species of Phyto. The First is Nanochloropsus, the other is Isocrysis. Nano is a green algae, and Iso is a brown. These two together are a great blend for your reef tank. So, heres a pic of my cultures roughly 24hrs after I started them.

As you can see the Nano has started to really grow. The Iso has started but it seems to be taking off a lot slower.