What are these???

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bcfd144

bcfd144

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jul 24, 2010
1,259
9
38
Missouri
Posted below is a video of what I think is brine shrimp, but not sure how they got into my phytoplankton factory.
Im working on growing my own phytoplankton. So far, going ok,

But today, I went to top off the water and saw these guys swimming in two of my bottles.
Are they brine shrimp or what???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDEQmsSlraY
 
kinda what I was thinking. I always hatch brine shrimp for my corals and stuff. But never grew them to this size. Some of the eggs may have gotten into my plankton bottles and hatches. So after two weeks, when I got ready to split my plankton, these guys have had a fiest to live on.. Was thinking of growing brine to large adult size, just have been waiting to get enought extra plankton to feed them, so looks like that may work after all.
 
Sounds like you need new culture containers for plankton, as you clearly have a brine shrimp contamination, which isn't bad, just they will eat the plankton, so you will need to start some clean culture containers for pure plankton. When I culture, I have labled containers, labled "micron filters" and labled everything (one of each thing for each culture) to prevent just this from happening.
 
Ya, I have seperate bottles for everything. I just set up all my bottles in a 20 gallon long tank so that my daughter doesnt mess with them. So today I redid the bottles. and set it up to were it doesnt happen again. This was a new culture of plankton, so didnt know if the disk the algae came from had something else in it or if somehow the brine shrimp eggs got into one of the plankton bottles when I was starting another brine shrimp batch. Its all well and good now and I have new bottles for each, just wanted to make sure these were brine shrimp and not something else that got into the phyto.. A good note, two of the brine shrimp were breeding.. So I just put them in the brineshrimp grow out tank I set up 4 days ago to see what happens..
 
Well so long as you feed them plankton regularily they should breed and grow well, I personally like to add adult brines to my tank on a regular basis as a suplimental food that is "fun" for the fish.
 
ya, that is my plan. I get the frozen ones, but if I can get my own growing, it will cut that cost. Will also be growing copopods here in the near future.
Just gettting my plankton culture going first to have enough food source for the brine and copopods.
 
Pazzoman said:
....is it difficult growing phyto?
Click to expand...

Not really, 2L coke bottle, air stone for best results, window, or outside, or a good strong lamp right beside the bottle, and a good phyto starter culture. Should basically grow all by itself, little to no maintenance. We the culture doesn't seem to be getting darker (peak "population"), either split it into 2 or more new cultures or you can scoop or filter out a portion and feed it to w/e it is you need to feed.
 
Pazzoman said:
....is it difficult growing phyto?
Click to expand...
No, its really not that hard.
First you have to get a culture or some that is already live. There are many you tube videos online that can show you basic set up on how to grow it.
Like Kevin said, Bottle of some kind, airstone and light.. Will need to also have a food for them to eat and grow..
When the solution gets dark, split it into two different bottles and top off the one you are going to regrow with saltwater and add more food..
This will alow you to start another regrow and use some for feeding..
Like I said, check out YouTube or welome to PM me with any questions..
 
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