phyto culturing question

[liziqi]

hi fellow reefers,

i've just began trying to culture phyto and i'm following the steps both bawater and cookiemonster have advocated.. however my first bottle of culture started settling after 2 days leaving mainly green stuff at the bottom and slightly greenish water. is it normal to see that or the water will become greener by the day without any sedimentation at the bottom..? pls advice.. thanks!

[Gripshoppe]

Yeap its common... shake it a little, all will be fine.

Actually through sedimentation you can roughly see how dense you cultured your phyto

[Achilles Tang]

Has your culture become darker as the days go by?

You have to bubble your culture enough so that you don't get any 'dead spots' where algae cells will settle.

[liziqi]

hi Gripshoppe & AT.. thanks for your reply!! just to clarify... i do have enough bubbling.. more than the 2/3 bubbles per second advocated by either bawater or cookiemonster.. however... the green stuff will still settle at the bottom after 1 day or so.. but i do try to shake the bottle abit.. when i so that the water seems to become greener.. is it normal den AT that i get that results? thanks for your advice again..!! really appreciate it!

[Gripshoppe]

Hey!

The phyto are suspended/circulated by the bubbles.

In this case if they are still settling though the bubbling is still on going, you might might want to increase the bubble rate to provide more agitation.

The culture do get denser as it grows, so maybe your bubble rate was strong enough to stir the initial stage but not enough to now.

2-3 bubbles are relatively slow. This rate can even be dampened if your air tube is narrow.

[Gripshoppe]

Maybe you didnt extend the air tube to the bottom of the bottle?