Switching from cultured live phyto to Instant Algae

[mpedersen]

I would especially love it if Randy or Gresham could chime in and offer their own ideas on this mater. Basically, we're slowly starting to plan out the 'reorganizing' of our house for maximum 'marketability'...in short, we're getting ready to put our home on the market. This means the orchid light rack (and thus my phytoplankton culture station) must go! However, money is at a premium as always...so I have to consider the economics of making the switch!

As you know, I'm not just working with clownfish...if I was, regular Nannochloropsus 3800 would be sufficient - http://www.reed-store.com/?category=46& ... tid=NAN-QT

So, what I'm loking for is more balance. Several rearing protocols seem to call for the use of T-Iso...I personally suspect this is for the HUFA balance T-Iso provides. In other cases, T-Iso seems to be required (i.e. for the cutlre of certain pelagic copepods) And therein comes the first stumbling point. The Isocrysis Instant Algae has a relatively short shelf life, likely because it can't be stored frozen.

I've been looking over the instant algae matrix ( http://www.reed-mariculture.com/microalgae/products.asp ) and I'm trying to figure out what my best course of action might be.

It looks like only Tetraselmis and Nannochloropsus have the long shelf life of 2 years when stored frozen. For a small breeder like me, this is a concern. I normally only go through 3-4 gallons of live phytoplankton per week. The Rotifer Diet I has me intrigued ( http://www.reed-store.com/?category=46& ... =RD1-LITER ). I can get some Tetraselmis in the mix (20%) without having to go buy separate Nannochoropsus and Tetraselmis. But I must ask, is that all that Rotifer Diet I is (80% Nan, 20% Tet)? Is there anything that might preclude it from use in greenwater technique?

And I'm still missing T-Iso, and thus DHA. Where do I get that into the larval fish rearing? I believe that to purchase the 1 quart bottle of IA Isocrysis might be a total waste, considering it has a refridgerated shelf life of only 3 to 3.5 months. So how do I get the DHA into the diet in a more economical manner?

And, what about all the other great algaes that have their own benefits...i.e. Thalassiosira weissflogii, Pavlova etc. It gets me thinking, is there a better product out there? I.e. what about the pre-existing reef nutrition products (i.e. http://www.reed-store.com/?category=47& ... id=PFC-LRG )? My concerns again go back to being able to use these products in Greenwater Technique primarily, but also shelf life. If there's existing products I can go purchase routinely from my local shop, perhaps that might be a better route than dealing with Instant Algae pastes altogether?

Thoughts

[Greshamh]

Randy's away at a conference (as he's been nearly every week for the last few months) but I'll point him this way.

We did discuss some options that might help you at our last meeting though

[mpedersen]

We did discuss some options that might help you at our last meeting though

Forgive my memory like a seive ( better to have these options posted for future people in similar situations anyway, no? )

[Greshamh]

We did discuss some options that might help you at our last meeting though

Forgive my memory like a seive ( better to have these options posted for future people in similar situations anyway, no? )

You shouldn't have any memory of a Reed Mariculture meeting and if you do I need to fly out the Chicago and clear your memory again Where's that little flash thingy

We = Reed
last meeting = last Reed meeting

[mpedersen]

We = Reed
last meeting = last Reed meeting

Aha

[Luis A M]

So NAN and TET can be frozen and kept indefinitely.All others can´t,according to Randy.
Frozen/refrig.algae can be used for short time greenwater as for clowns.Long time seems controversial at this time.
It seems that calanoids require live algae.
A new interesting aproach are the Spanish liophilized algae,many species.

[mpedersen]

It seems that calanoids require live algae.

Yeah,you've mentioned that before and I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps the solution is to only culture what NEEDS to be cultured...that is, only culture T-Iso? I probably can tuck away a small 3-4 2L bottle culture station somewhere, and the rest I can use the pastes...

HMM...not idea, but an option. I'm curious to see what Randy has to say..if I can get off of culturing completely, that would of course be the ideal...

[seafarm]

Hi Matt,

I suspect it will take a couple of postings to properly address your questions. Here goes my first pass:

Nanno (or Nanno based products like Rotifer Diet) are hands-down the best feed for the highest production of rotifers. Rotifers have extremely high metabolisms (egg to producing eggs in 18 hours!) so they need high energy food to feed their engines, and Nanno does that better than any other food I’ve ever heard of. By adding a small amount of Tetraselmis (i.e. Rotifer Diet which is 90% Nanno, 10% Tet) the reproduction rate increases a bit, but the same number of rotifers are produced per ml of algae added. Nanno and Tet can also be stored frozen because they have tough cell walls that are not broken by the freezing process.

Unfortunately green algae like Nanno and Tet do not produce DHA, which is the most import of the Omega-3 fatty acids. So to "enrich" your rotifers with microalgae it's necessary to use a high DHA species such as Isochrysis or Pavlova. The downside of these species is that they are not High Energy feeds so rotifers don't grow well on them. They also have thin cell membranes which are easily broken when frozen, and once they guts of the algae leak out, they are useless.

What commercial fish hatcheries do is grow the rotifers on Nanno, harvest the number of rotifers they are going to feed to their fish that day, then move those rotifers into a separate culture vessel and enrich them for a few hours to enrich them.

The perfect solution would be a feed that contains both Nanno and Pavlova so it would produce lots of rotifers, and they would always be fully enriched. And guess what - we are very close to having that product ready - look for it to be available around the timeframe of Macna (beginning of September).

You also mentioned copepods, so here are some thoughts on them.

Copepods the natural food for marine larvae. They are the "insects of the ocean" and there are something like 12,000 species of them. Rotifers are not typically found in the ocean, they are a brackish water organism.

Copepods are a better food that rotifers, but rotifers are "good enough" and the "egg to producing eggs in 18 hours" aspect makes them commercially viable because copepods typically take 30-45 days to go from egg to producing eggs.

One interested characteristic of copepods is that they can naturally convert short chain fatty acids into longer chain fatty acids. What the heck does that mean? It means they can convert readily available EPA into the more valuable DHA. This means they typically don't need to be "enriched" like rotifers and brine shrimp. How cool is that!

As for feeding them, the species of copepods we've worked with don't seem to do well on Nanno. They do pretty well on Tetraselmis and really seem to like brown algae like Isochrysis, Pavlova, and TW (Thalassiosira weissflogii). This is also true for feeding brine shrimp - they love the browns.

I saw Luis's posting about calanoids needing live algae. That might be true, but I can't imagine why. Copeopods are opportunistic feeders and as long at the particle size is correct and the cells are unbroken they should not be able to tell the difference between live and non-live algae, or care. Many algae strains are non-motile so they only way to tell if they are alive is to watch them under a microscope for 24 hours and see if they reproduce. A recent scientific report indicates that about 70% of the microalgae on a reef is not alive, but it all gets eaten - it's all good food. As an analogy, corn that you picked yesterday is just as good as corn still on the stalk, even though it would no longer be considered "live".

For Greenwater, there are typically a couple of things people are looking for. First is enhanced visual acuity. Baby fish find it easier to identify and capture their food if there is microalgae is the water to create a cloud or fog. It's really difficult to have depth perception in crystal clear water with glass walls. Second, having algae in the water provides a continuing feed for the zooplankton. If you are feeding with rotifers using a brown algae for Greenwater keeps the enrichment levels high. Copepods self-enrich so as long as they are feeding on the algae, it doesn't much matter which one you use.

Nanno is the very best algae for Greenwater because it stays suspended for a very long time with little or no circulation and takes a long time to start to decompose (several days). If you are using live algae then Iso or Pav work pretty well. Rotifer Diet can be used for Greenwater, however the Tetraselmis cells are heavy and settle out pretty quickly.

So what would I suggest that you do today while you are waiting for our new products to come out? I'd use the version of Rotifer Diet in the Reef Nutrition product line for growing your rotifers ( http://www.reed-store.com/?category=58& ... id=RD-SM:1 ) and for Greenwater, then use Phyto-Feast ( http://www.reed-store.com/?category=47& ... tid=PFC-SM ) for Enrichment. Phyto-Feast contains a mix of all of our algae, and is heavy on the brown algae.

This is a good start. Let me know where you would like to go from here.

Randy

[Luis A M]

I saw Luis's posting about calanoids needing live algae. That might be true, but I can't imagine why. Copeopods are opportunistic feeders and as long at the particle size is correct and the cells are unbroken they should not be able to tell the difference between live and non-live algae, or care. Many algae strains are non-motile so they only way to tell if they are alive is to watch them under a microscope for 24 hours and see if they reproduce. A recent scientific report indicates that about 70% of the microalgae on a reef is not alive, but it all gets eaten - it's all good food. As an analogy, corn that you picked yesterday is just as good as corn still on the stalk, even though it would no longer be considered "live".

Well,I am not 100% sure it can not be done.I tried several times with IA TET paste and also with the Spanish lioph.TET.Actually some few times the cultures (A.tonsa)lived but then crashed.I agree with Randy that it should work.Perhaps it´s only a matter of fiddling with the aereation so as to keep the algae in suspension.Of course it would be great to raise calanoids with IA.I could culture all I want without the limits imposed by my algal cultures
And besides,what doesn´t work for somebody might do for other people.Ed finds IA OK for long term greenwater technique and could raise Gobiodon with rots.I could neither

[mpedersen]

So what would I suggest that you do today while you are waiting for our new products to come out? I'd use the version of Rotifer Diet in the Reef Nutrition product line for growing your rotifers ( http://www.reed-store.com/?category=58& ... id=RD-SM:1 ) and for Greenwater, then use Phyto-Feast ( http://www.reed-store.com/?category=47& ... tid=PFC-SM ) for Enrichment. Phyto-Feast contains a mix of all of our algae, and is heavy on the brown algae.

Randy, THANK YOU. Awesome response, great post, tons of info...exactly what I was hoping to document for anyone else who might be thinking about doing something like this.

I'll be checking to see if I can get these locally..if not, I'll be placing an order The dual-purpose of using Reef-Nutrition products keeps the cost and waste down, which I truly like! I'll certainly give this a shot, see how it goes, and report back my experience!

[aquagrrl]

Have you considered other supplements to help enrich? I plan on using algamac 3000 to add dha. Actually I'm using it now for my 3 lonely bangai cardinal babies when I enrich, but I don't know if that's a valid test. You can request a free sample, when I got a sample it arrived the same week:
http://www.aquafauna.com/Diets-AlgaMac-3000.htm

[mpedersen]

Have you considered other supplements to help enrich?

In the past, I've used Selcon for Enrichment. And that works well from a standpoint of "feeding" rotifers to a tank. It's totally inappropriate for keeping things nutritious if not immediately fed, and that's where the greenwater comes in.

Despite Randy's suggestion, I may try using Phyto-Feast for greenwater as well...I want that long-term rounded nutritional profile...but as Randy explained above, it's more of an issue with Rotifers than other potential food items I might be offering.

[aquagrrl]

Might this be more in line with what you're looking for? http://www.aquafauna.com/Diets-Rotimac.htm#Allocating

[mpedersen]

Might this be more in line with what you're looking for? http://www.aquafauna.com/Diets-Rotimac.htm#Allocating

No, they're really different (I think). Based soley on what I've read for the Algaemac 3000...this is a spray-dried product, a powder. I don't think that will work well at all for Greenwater Technique most likely.

Part of the issue in using algae for greenwater technique is that it has to remain in suspsension and not pollute, as well as retain the maximum amount of nutrition through the manufacturing process.

[aquagrrl]

But won't dead algae pollute just the same? I was under the impression that for using greenwater with the fry it had to be alive. I guess I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to do, as I thought the majority if of the benefits from greenwater came from live algae.

[Luis A M]

But won't dead algae pollute just the same? I was under the impression that for using greenwater with the fry it had to be alive. I guess I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to do, as I thought the majority if of the benefits from greenwater came from live algae.

Yes,dead algae should add NH3 instead of removing it.But somehow,IA NAN works fine in green water and NH3 in not detectable

[mpedersen]

Yes,dead algae should add NH3 instead of removing it.But somehow,IA NAN works fine in green water and NH3 in not detectable

I think the key is in Randy's explanation above...in products like the Instant Algae NAN, the cell wall strong, and it is intact. And it remains in suspension, available for feeding, rather than on the bottom where it's just waiting to rot. So you have these little packets of nutrition floating around, but they're not actually available to bacteria for decomposition until the cell wall breaks down over several days, in the meantime most of which can be consumed by rotifers. So, as long as your husbandry is good, you don't have issues with nitrogenous waste.

Conversely, a product like T-Iso has the short shelf life because it cannot be frozen (cell wall is relatively "thin") and will break down quickly (thus not so good for greenwater technique with something like an IA Isocrysis paste?)...which is why you use the product for enrichment, but NOT for "Greenwater Technique" (and thus why I mused above that maybe I just need to continue culturing T-Iso if I want to use it for Greenwater).

[Luis A M]

Yes,the explanation must be around that fact.Smell is important to asess the conservation state of algae.I once forgot some IA NAN in the hot fish room,out of the fridge and the following day it was still smelling nice,as fresh algae.
Too bad that T-ISO or other DHA rich brown algae can not be frozen.But in the beginning,Randy was cryopreserving algae (using protective agents that stop the build up of ice crystals),so a "frozen" (but liquid)T-ISO was possible.This was discontinued because of some concerns (overreacted,IMO) of the risks of the cryo agent to the commercial aquaculture.

[aquagrrl]

Ah. That makes good sense. So while it might not have the added benefit of removing ammonia, it will work to keep on enriching and not adding to the bioload for a while. In that time hopefully being consumed.

I had the old cryopreserved t-iso from brineshrimp direct. Actually, just looking, they still have it on their site. What was the concern with the preservative?

[mpedersen]

I assume this is the product in question? - http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/c1/c6/ ... e-c33.html

This is Reed Mariculture's Instant Algae T-Iso. The concern here is that it cannot be frozen and therefore has a considerably shorter shelf life (3 to 3.5 months). The price is a bit prohibitive on the larger quantity consider I'd probably only use a fraction of it in MY personal setup (heck, knowing how things go, it could very well expire before I even started using it). Also, I simply don't know about the smaller size...that may be something where BSD is repackaging fom a larger size...which could mean less remaining shelf life when it arrives to you.

It's also not ideal for greenwater technique because T-Iso has a thin cell wall and doesn't remain in suspension as well (aka. sinks out and decays faster) (Editoral Note - this is apparently not 100% accurate...see Randy's response below...he knows his products much better than I...which is the whole point of this thread! )

Correct me if I'm wrong on anything Randy or Gresh!

[seafarm]

Here is a page on our website about Greenwater I wrote over 4 years ago, and I'm surprised with how accurate it still is

http://www.reed-mariculture.com/fish/greenwater.htm

No doubt I need to update it with some of the newer information we now know about Greenwater.

Years ago we had a product called Cryo-Paste that had glycerin added to it. Glycerin does not hard freeze until something like -80 C so it kept the product liquid at freezing temps. It also added carbs to the system which is typically a good thing.

We stopped adding glycerin to our products a few years ago, at a time that we were ONLY working with commercial hatcheries. It turned out that in a system without any significant levels of bacteria (a larval fish tank) that the sugar created a rapid spike in bacteria, and that concerned the hatchery managers.

In a reef system adding glycerin has no unhealthy affects because the system already has a high and mature level of bacteria. We still provide algae with glycerin products to some of our customers.

Live algae DOES help bring down the levels of ammonia by consuming it, at that can be important in a commercial hatchery. But in a reef system there is so much bacteria breaking down the ammonia that help the live algae would provide would be negligible.

Iso is not a bad Greenwater solution, even dead Iso. Depending on how much you add, most or all of it will get consumed before it has a chance to deteriorate and potentially foul the system. It won’t stay suspended as long as Nanno, but with minimal circulation should stay suspended for a few to several hours.

Randy

[aquagrrl]

So is the description on BrineShrimpDirect wrong, or are they one of the customers still being supplied a product with glycerin? Because I'm thinking that after hearing Adelaide Rhodes talk on Probiotic bacteria, it might not be a bad thing if there is a bacteria growth from the glycerin - assuming its a harmless bacteria. Of course that is a mighty big assumption.

[seafarm]

Glycerin is a great product to add to reef tanks because is does promote bacterial growth. A health tank will be full of healthy bacteria An unhealthy tank might have bacteria you don’t want to promote. So I guess I would only add it to healthy tanks

[mpedersen]

So, I'm in the middle of the plunge...down to only 4 2L bottles of live algae...got rid of the Nannochloris cultures..there goes one that ain't gonna be so easy to relocate if I ever DO need it...oh well!

Anxiously awaiting the stuff I ordered from Reed

Matt

[LethargicCoder]

So, I'm in the middle of the plunge...down to only 4 2L bottles of live algae...got rid of the Nannochloris cultures..there goes one that ain't gonna be so easy to relocate if I ever DO need it...oh well!

Anxiously awaiting the stuff I ordered from Reed

Matt

Are there any other members close that could foster your cultures?

I know if I was near, I would jump at the chance to obtain some variety that I don't have. In exchange provide you some if needed and starters once you're setup again.

-Eric