Fish 4 U.  Don't know who else carries it, but it's a standard price.

Adam

It's not that hard to start a culture...the hard part is keeping it going uncontaminated and without crashing.

Did you know that our own local producer of phytoplankton and Rotifers, Mountain Corals, is owned and operated by a third generation of WMAS members? First it was started by a local biologist that identified and developed a unique bright green strain of single celled algae as a food source for coral and rotifers. The business was then purchased by Tim Weidauer, WMAS founder and president for three years. Current WMAS members and past president and librarian, Joe and Cindy Jones then purchased it from Tim and operated it for about three years. And recently another WMAS member, Don Ballash, purchased it and is supplying local and national accounts including The Living Planet.

Give your coral the food they deserve: Velvet Green and Rotifers; produced locally by Mountain Corals. You will immediately notice the difference in color between the deep green of Velvet Green vs. DT's yellow-green.

I'm not sure, but Joe and Cindy might be willing to explain the basics of culture maintenance for those that are ready to do the hard work! Personally, it would be great to hear of another club member raising Anemonefish using Velvet Green fed Rotifers.

Mark

I got mine from The Pet Factory!!!

Next to Pier One Imports on State St at about 6200 So.

Yeah, I'm kicking myself for not making it to the meeting but I had a previous plans...  Anyway, my tank is back on track and ready for some new frags so I'll be stopping by soon (I'll message you).

I won two bags of the "red" phytoplankton that was raffled off at the last meeting!  I went home and put one in a bottle and am going to try to grow it.  It looks a lot more yellow than red though!  I will try to keep everyone posted of any progress.  It was supposed to have zooanthellaes in it.  Will they grow or die?  How would I know if they lived?

I have always used the microalgae inoculants from Florida Aqua Farms Inc.

http://www.florida-aqua-farms.com - www.florida-aqua-farms.com

You can make hundreds of gallons of dense cultures with a single inoculant, or simply make a couple gallons when you need it.

As explained on their website.... 

"Want a guaranteed live alternative for not so live hobby liquid algae cultures? Then our "Micro Algae Disks" are the answer. Convenient live inoculants of microalgae ready to use when you need them. Unialgal, petri-dish cultures of microalgae specially sealed for extended shelf life. Simply store at normal cool room temperature in a dark area, "Micro Algae Disk�" cultures can survive for 6+ months. No liquids involved, small, compact, lightweight, easy and less costly to transport. Disks eliminate the need to maintain liquid sub-starter cultures in the lab. Cost of one disk is cheaper than hobby liquid culture. Place sterile culture water on disk, cover, provide moderate light, for 12 to 24 hours then rub off cells with a sterile cotton Q-tip, add to 250 - 500 ml culture water, fertilize (see our Micro Algae Grow), aerate and incubate in 16-24 light for 7-10 days then use as an inoculant for larger cultures. Five popular saltwater species available. Nanochloropsus (Japanese Chlorella) and Nannochloris can be grown in either saltwater or freshwater. Others tolerate low salinities but best growth normally obtained in 15 to 25 ppt. Sizes shown are maximum. Nanochloropsus, Tetraselmis and Isocrysis are considered the most important alga in culturing zooplankton such as rotifers and ciliates. Chaetoceros, a diatom is normally used in clam and shrimp culture. Tetraselmis, and Isocrysis are motile alga, normally used to culture zooplankton like rotifers and Artemia."

Rodney, I got it cooking! it's exploding! And, my babies seem to be growing a lot bigger with it!

  Nobody even mentioned my stinkin' thread! See if I take a stinkin' hour with our crappy dialup service to load pics for you guys!

 I've grown phyto for a few years and haven't experienced a "crash" for ages and I just found a really cool way to start stuff when the stuff turns yellow....

You mean this thread Suzy?

http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1825&KW=phytoplankton+density&PN=0&TPN=1 - http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1825& KW=phytoplankton+density&PN=0&TPN=1

You remembered! I knew I liked you!

I'm not an expert so your opinion is appreciated.  I found 12 bottles on ebay for $50. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20759&item=4317770343&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2 0759&item=4317770343&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

If you think it's worth a try, pm me and I'll order them and we can split up the order.   Susan

The club may want to add Plankton Culture Manual to its library. Topics discussed include...

Aquatic food webs

Utilization of plankton

Microalgae identification

Microalgae culture (not what kind of music they listen to BTW)

Rotifer culture

Ciliate culture

Artemia culture

Copepod culture

Daphnia culture

Clam and oyster veligers

Amphipod culture

Mysis culture

Micro worm culture

Ditto, I'll join in on an order of the red. My Fish love it, for the 2 seconds it last before they eat it all. :-)

I bought some beautiful Snails from Eric that were covered in red algae......for about 30 seconds.

I have absolutely no interest at all about culturing any of this. 

So whoever does culture it, I'd like to get some from you.

Adam
(and yes, I can have Andy send us some of whatever you all want)

Mark Peterson wrote: Could we get enough to split between all the growers? I personally would like a direct culture of a red unicellular algae.

I think this is the best way, that way we can minimize our losses, if any.  I was unable to find out anything about PhycoPure from their website, or any other.  One site (WetWebMedia.com) mentioned it briefly.

Suzy wrote: I think our last speaker said that the nanno strain of algae was the least nutritious, which is what this is.

I did not go to that meeting, but I believe the nutritive value the speaker was talking about is lipid content. In microalgae strains, the two most notable lipids are EPAs and DHAs. These fatty-acid chains are important in the normal development of fish and shrimp larva. In fish, EPAs are not easily converted to DHAs, so it is important the fish recieve DHAs in their diets. Nannochloropsis is very high in EPAs, but does not have any DHAs. Other species of microalgae contain both EPAs and DHAs (notably Pavlova and Isochrysis). Pavlova is very difficult to culture, so Isochrysis is a good choice for culture when DHAs are important. This is a motile golden-brown algae which is a good food source for some soft corals, shellfish, and shrimp. If you wish to grow food for hard corals, rotifers would be a better choice. Rotifers will eat phytoplankton of 1-10 microns in diameter (ie. nannochloropsis). In my opinion, nannochloropsis is fine in most cases unless you are producing rotifers for larval fish or shrimp. I do not know which species the "red phyto" is, but would assume it is also high in DHAs and is therefore more "nutritious".

DHA and EPA are two types of HUFAs (Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids).

I have my degree in biology, but I used this website as well...

http://www.microalgae.com/proximate.asp - http://www.microalgae.com/proximate.asp

Ahzo!  I see the picture now.  Also, this is just a misc. random thought... but when my mom was visiting here, she has to have a thing called a TPN line to give her nutrition.  Anyway, a lot of the things we give fish are the things that her TPN provides.  She was amazed that we add things like magnesium & strontium and look for food with HUFAs, etc.

Yes, he does.  He lives in Syracuse.  I asked him about it, thinking I could probably use it.  If jglover wants it, that's cool.  Or I could share it.  Whatever works.

Renee

Suzy,

AWP on a TPN is about $90.00-$120.00  Still pretty expensive to be feeding to your fry.