Is a live culture of phytoplankton needed for clownfish breeding? Not completely nessessary any more. With so many Rotigrow, Rotifeed, & Rotidiet products out there, you can pretty much grow rotifer solely on using those commercial product. But with limited budget, I rather grow phyto myself. The only thing that I will have to continue to buy is just the salt and some fertilizer.
There are 3 most common/popular phyto and they are Nanochloropsus, Tetraselmis and Isocrysis. They all have slightly different nutritional profile. If you only have room to grow just one culture, Nano would be the easiest and have enough nutrition for most cases.
I ordered my algae disks from [URL="florida-aqua-farms.com/]Florida Aqua Farms[/URL] (FAF). Soak them in 1.018 salt water for a day and pour them into a 2L soda bottle and fill it up with salt water. Put about 15-20 drops of fertilizer in there as well. Don't be cheap and use the fertilizer for normal plants. Get the MICRO ALGAE GROW from FAF. It uses the guillard F/2 formulation. Your larvae/fish will be eating it (indirectly) after all.
Drill the soda bottle cap and insert a rigid air tube in there. Connect it to an air pump and have it bubbling away. With Nano, you want the bubbling rate to be like boiling water. With Tetra and Iso, you want it to be a bit slower. If you don't have much space, just put the 2L bottles along with some light fixture in a bucket will do.
If you have some room, do it the right way.
FAQ: You can buy the rigid air tube from most fish store. It should be in their air pump section. I got mine from PetSmart. The rigid air tube is about 3 feet long. I cut them in half at 45 degree. And then cut off the pointy tip to make it less sharp. The reason to cut it at 45 degree is that if you cut it flat, when the tube is straight down the bottle, the air would get blocked by the bottle bottom.
There are 3 most common/popular phyto and they are Nanochloropsus, Tetraselmis and Isocrysis. They all have slightly different nutritional profile. If you only have room to grow just one culture, Nano would be the easiest and have enough nutrition for most cases.
I ordered my algae disks from [URL="florida-aqua-farms.com/]Florida Aqua Farms[/URL] (FAF). Soak them in 1.018 salt water for a day and pour them into a 2L soda bottle and fill it up with salt water. Put about 15-20 drops of fertilizer in there as well. Don't be cheap and use the fertilizer for normal plants. Get the MICRO ALGAE GROW from FAF. It uses the guillard F/2 formulation. Your larvae/fish will be eating it (indirectly) after all.
Drill the soda bottle cap and insert a rigid air tube in there. Connect it to an air pump and have it bubbling away. With Nano, you want the bubbling rate to be like boiling water. With Tetra and Iso, you want it to be a bit slower. If you don't have much space, just put the 2L bottles along with some light fixture in a bucket will do.
If you have some room, do it the right way.
FAQ: You can buy the rigid air tube from most fish store. It should be in their air pump section. I got mine from PetSmart. The rigid air tube is about 3 feet long. I cut them in half at 45 degree. And then cut off the pointy tip to make it less sharp. The reason to cut it at 45 degree is that if you cut it flat, when the tube is straight down the bottle, the air would get blocked by the bottle bottom.
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