Culture Journal, Species: [Isochrysis Galbana]

General
Species:  Isochrysis Galbana
Species description:  Motile phytoflagellate
Culture source (link if possible):  Florida Aqua Farms
 
 
Culture Establishment Date:  December 3, 2012
Continuation Date:  23 July, 2013

Culturing Vessel Details
Salinity:  1.023
Temperature:    Ambient
pH:  Not Measured

Vessel description:  One quart wide-mouthed jar with a plastic lid and airline going into the culture
Lighting description:  6500k leds
Lighting cycle:  14 hours on, 10 hours off 
Aeration description:  Air pump with a pace of a bubble per second

Methodologies
Split methodology:
Every 8 days take 1/2 out and put into new container   
Culture medium description: 
FAF Micro Algae Grow of 10 drops per quart at the beginning of each culture
Cell count:
 (if known)
NA
Reference links:  

Additional Information
(No Pictures or Videos in the Section Please)
Notes: 
To start culture, we bubbled it in a small, covered, glass cup for over a week. Then split into two two-quart glass dishes


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This is the vial it came in. I did not start this culture with a algae disk; instead, at check out, you can choose if you want them to grow a culture and send it to you when it is shippable. 

Nice to know that they offer a liquid starter now, too!  I never could get those FAF Isochrysis disks to do anything.
 
FWIW, I think that using only 3ml to start a 1L culture is too little, and runs too much risk of contamination from other sources.  Frank Hoff in the "Plankton Culture Manual, Sixth Edition" says on Page 56 that, "A rule of thumb in inoculation is never to dilute more than 100-fold."  He goes on to say on Page 62, in the troubleshooting section, "Too low an inoculant per volume or other factors mentioned allow bacteria to proliferate and often subdue a new culture."

Today I am splitting the Iso into four separate canning jars, each with 800 ml of water. I microwaved them all at once with 8 drops of the FAF microalgae grow for 15 minutes with the airline tubing and lid attached to the jars.

What temperature does the media get up to with that treatment?
 

As of right now, the temperature is only at 122.5°F. I am sticking it back into the microwave at 7 minutes at a time until I can figure out the time it takes for the jars to reach a temperature of 180-185°F.

My thermometer went to the emergency "too hot" mode when the temperature was around 152.6. This was after the six jars had been in the microwave for about 30 minutes

after 37 minutes total, it was at 212 F. I only used one jar so the testing is still in progress

With only 3 jars, It took 38 total minutes for it to reach a perfect 185F

You are shooting for 85C / 185F, and not much higher.  If it goes much higher, then stuff may precipitate out of solution.

Thanks Jim. As of now I have run out of things to split, but I will try again tomorow for getting all 6 to be in the 180-185F range.

Jim, FAF has always offered liquid cultures upon request I just don't think it's always been advertised, that said I've had great luck with the  strike discs.  Then again I am more anal at culture start than continuum.
 
Starting with 3ml I would start three separate 200ml cultures in 500ml erlynmyer flasks then split on up, splitting at a rate of 9-12 days steady it wont take long to ramp from 200ml to full liter cultures.

Pelagically yours,
~J      

Any updates?

Ok thought I should update this (Long Overdue) for a culture continuation! I have had this running since december (8 months) and its still going! I went down from 8 Jars to 4 (Space and Time) and here is a pic! (Yes I know the algae tower is a MESS!)

I split it every 8 days now, taking half of the old culture and sticking it into a new mason jar (I through out the rest or stick it into a fish tank.) This species has been ESPECIALLY hardy for me, I had it running without air some times (The airline came lose at the top and wasn't actually flowing air to the culture ) But overall this was an easy culture to take care of. To keep it fresh I do the every 8 days but if you miss it by a few, not the end of the world, just make sure to get back to that 8 day drift! Also, right now (I need to split tommorow,) the current density is around ~7.2 million per ml, or ~6,000,000,000 cells (Jim or anyone make sure I got that right! It said 6 cm on my FAF density stick!)

OK so now for some TRUE evidence of these cultures alive, MICROSCOPE shots. It starts at 40x, then 100x, then 400x on my Celestron 4430.
 

Well, my algae culture crashed about a month ago, but I am ordering more iso from SeaHorse Source and should arrive by Monday. 

I redesigned the algae "tower" so that it is more narrow and longer, so that I can fit 4-8 jars of algae per row,. I also upgraded the lights to two tube lights, I believe one of the units are two t8's and the other is a single t-10, I'll have to check though once I am back home from school later. Here is a picture of the algae now, and one thing I have noticed is that the algae is growing a lot quicker with the new lights. I split the algae on Sunday, and then it had a density of around 4.1 million cells per ml, and now it is at around 9.7 to 12.9 million cells per ml (these estimates were using the Florida Aqua Farms Micro Algae Density Stick Chart)