What is the easiest (best?) algae for DHA?

[johnrt]

What is considered to be the best algae to grow for DHA enrichment and/or what are the trade-offs with the various species?

The cultures will be in the basement where temperatures do not go above the low 20s C or mid 70s F.

Thank you.

[spawner]

T-iso and Pavlova are generally your best bets. T-iso has almost no EPA and mostly DHA. Pavlova has both. Pav is a little harder to work with. T-iso is about as easy as it gets. What do you need them for?

[johnrt]

[spawner]

Well for macro algae Ulva has a great profile. There is a nice paper published in Food Chemistry that gives data for 27 species of macroalgae.





Abstract

The lipid and fatty acid compositions of 27 tropical macroalgae belonging to the three phyla, Chlorophyta, Phaeophyta and Rhodophyta, were studied from a nutritional and chemotaxonomic perspective. The lipid content varied widely among the species and ranged from 0.57% to 3.5% on a dry weight basis (p less-than-or-equals, slant 0.01). Chlorophyta members showed higher C18PUFAs contents than did C20 PUFAs while for Rhodophyta the trend was opposite. The Phaeophyta members displayed a profile of C18PUFAs similar to that of Chlorophyta and of C20PUFAs to that of Rhodophyta. Both Phaeophyta and Rhodophyta species were rich in arachadonic acid (AA) and eicosopentaenoic acid (EPA) and Ulvales in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content. Most of the species studied had a nutritionally beneficial n6/n3 ratio (0.61–5.15:1). Further, the principal component analysis clearly segregated the three phyla by their FA composition and hierarchical cluster analysis altogether classified them into six distinct groups, suggesting that FAs can be used as a tool for chemotaxonomic studies.

Keywords: Chlorophyta; Fatty acids; Lipids; n6/n3 ratio; Phaeophyta; PUFAs; Rhodophyta; Tropical macroalgae

[rayjay]

What is the attraction to growing micro algae for enrichment, with the work it entails, when powdered forms work quite well?
I grow the artemia and rotifers with spirulina powders, and then enrich with Algamac Protein Plus and Algamac 3050. Lately my enrichment process is using Dan's Food with Beta Glucan from seahorsesource.com which is the Algamac products plus other enhancements as well.
I've gone from culturing close to 150g of micro down to about 24g now.

[Suzy]

I like to add live to delicate larvae tanks, and for some expensive live cultures. I find it is easier to grow microalgae than do frequent water cahnges, and it is realy heart breaking to lose something due to an ammonia spike. Dead food cant do that for me.