Live food culture station

[Reefaholic]

Culturing station..

Wonder whether it works

Culture_Station.doc

[Reefaholic]

I have read some books on this info..

Have not try it yet..

Hope to receive experts advise.

[bawater]

You will get better growth results and density if each tank runs on its own.

so all u need is the air pump & 3 tanks.

If connected - There will be contamination (not a if, but a when).

rotifers or bbs or both will get into the phyto somehow. If phyto crashes it may affect the other 2 cultures below. And phyto does crash.

Based on the assumption that the UV will nuke everything 100% before it reaches the phyto.

and the filter below will need to employ micron filter screens 50 microns or smaller(to make it rotifer proof).

The station will work - but for a short period before you encounter hiccups and cross contamination. There are a few station designs on the web but if u read the follow ups - most of them suffer crashes or contamination after a while.

rgds

Save money, run each culture on its own as a batch culture.

[Reefaholic]

Thanks for your valuable advise.

I am also thinking of cross contamination when i come out with this. That is why i add in the UV to somehow kill off any bacteria before it gets to the next stage.

Anyway, do you know where to get live rotifer?? or copepod? Quite difficult to get it in s'pore unless order from US.

[bawater]

i don't have that much faith on UV, unless u run it through a bank of them (like coral farm does) - if u use a typical hobbyist type - its only in contact with the tube for seconds since most of the lengths are 6" to 12".

but that's only my opinion

Funny thing is - if you microwave your tank water 7 mins on high then use it to culture phyto..................cyano will grow.

i think there are at least 10 ppl culturing rotifers here (or least that i know of) - there could be more. so its not hard to get a starter batch right here, because they are relatively easy to culture.

[Reefaholic]

i don't have that much faith on UV, unless u run it through a bank of them (like coral farm does) - if u use a typical hobbyist type - its only in contact with the tube for seconds since most of the lengths are 6" to 12".

but that's only my opinion

Funny thing is - if you microwave your tank water 7 mins on high then use it to culture phyto..................cyano will grow.

i think there are at least 10 ppl culturing rotifers here (or least that i know of) - there could be more. so its not hard to get a starter batch right here, because they are relatively easy to culture.

Maybe you are right. the flowrate must not be too fast in the culture tank but it will stimulate other unwanted bacteria... But i wonder will algae diminish these cyno?

Any place or people you can recommend on rotifer?

As i believe feeding live food to your SPS and fishes are very healthy and will minimise phosphate as they are living animals. Either they die naturally (eventually eaten by other bacteria or LS) or dwell on some live rocks. When feeding it in the main tank i think they will still survive for quite sometime.