Phytoplankton air filters

Anyone ever try using a sediment filter in a water pre-filter housing (like on RO units) for air filtering?  It seems like a relatively cheap, high flow option.  I think I've seen sediment filters down to 0.1 microns.  Give it a soak in alcohol, let it dry out, and we have a sterilized air filter.  Yes/no?
 
I see BRS has an OmniPure inline sediment or carbon filter too with 1/4" push connect fittings.  I asked them how many microns those filters are.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

That sounds like a really promising idea!

Jim Welsh Approval - must be a good idea then! 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

Cool idea. One of the supply shops I use (Premium Aquatics) has 10" 0.35 micron filters for about $17, and the canister with push fittings is about $20. I wonder if that size would be small enough to be effective?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken

What are you trying to affect? I've run without filters for years and never had a problem.  How would you measure success with an air filter?

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
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Haha Kathy!  I've never used an air filter, but I've seen it strongly recommended from many sources when culturing Isochrysis.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

I also think that is a good idea, but the cartridge filters I'm familiar are plumbed with 3/4" lines.  They might run into flow restrictions with larger air pumps but should be able to handle most needs.  
 
The smallest cartridge filters I've found are activated carbon ones.  Are these the ones you're talking about or did you find something that filters smaller particles?

Yeah, I'm not sure if the small micron sediment filters would cause too much back pressure on the pump or not.  I'm using Coralife Luft pumps SL-65. 
 
This 0.35 micron filter seems easy to find...  http://www.h2odistributors.com/fm-035-975.asp

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

If you're using a regular aquarium air pump I don't guess there will be much of a back pressure problem for a long time.  If you're using inside air, your house isn't full of dust and keep your house air filters changed regularly, I actually see this filter lasting a long time for you.  Like 6 months or a year kind of long time.  Just my guess.
 
Can you keep finicky phyto cultures for a long time?  If not, you may consider using UV after this .35 micron cartridge filter and before a carbon filter.  Given that air is very clean, I would guess that you could go with a very low wattage UV unit.

Dave, I did think a bit about adding a carbon filter, not so much a UV, but I'm not sure if either are necessary.  I can easily get 1 micron carbon water filters rather than a 0.35 micron sediment filter.  Is 1 micron enough?  I know people use packed cotton balls - I can't imagine that is very small, but I don't know really.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

I've grown gallons and gallons of Isochrysis without any air filter, and gallons and gallons of Isochrysis in the presence of rotifers, purposefully contaminated in the culture, and : no problem. 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

The Filter Guys have a similar concept going on here, http://www.thefilterguys.biz/skimmer_media.htm .

Kathy, you appear to be a bit more of a "pro" in that your experience level is higher than most of the rest of us.  Iso is a much better algae to grow than nanno and congratulations to you for being able to grow it well even in the presence of rotifers.   But your experience notwithstanding, I'd still think that it is a safe and cheap bet to thoroughly filter the air input to a phyto culture.
 
Perhaps because I don't have your experience, I think that a small micron cartridge filter, combined with UV and carbon filter will go a long way toward growing phyto even more finicky and nutritious than Iso, like Pavlova and Rhodomonas.  Finicky algaes tend to have thinner cell walls and are more easily digestible, plus a general rule is that the slower growing the algae, the more vitamins it synthesizes and the more nutritious it is.  What I like about the cartridge filters is price, they are mass produced to serve a market of millions of house water filters instead of thousands of aquarists.  
 
So for an investment of $20 for a housing and cartridge filter and another $20 for an ozone generator I would go that route.  Even though better aquarists may not need to.

Given the cheap cost of these filters, I'd probably use both, although only one should be necessary.  Either of them should be much better than cotton balls.  The cotton balls work because the air in the phyto container is on the way out, but they would not be near as good at filtering incoming air.

I'm sure I'm not a better aquarist.  I just like to keep things simple.  But by all means, continue as you wish. I've heard of others filtering the air, and it can't hurt.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

 
That's about all I know!    I'm not entirely sure what it is "we" are trying to  filter out.  If I knew that, I could probably make a more educated decision on filter fineness (how is that said properly?).
 

 
Yeah, same idea.  I'm not sure I would want that on a skimmer though - it seems like it would constrict air flow too much seeing as a skimmer's air intake is based on a relatively weak suction.  Maybe the addition of an air pump wold make that a better design.

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

We try to filter out contaminants that would make our phyto cultures crash.  Weed algae like blue green algae, rotifers, and protozoa are the most common.  Some phyto like chlorella or nannochloropsis are themselves "weeds" and grow so fast that they are less likely to get contaminated, but they can contaminate other slower growing algaes that are more nutritious.  
 
Think of it like crabgrass and alfalfa.  Weeds grow quickly because they don't have much nutrition.  Weed algaes don't synthesize vitamins.  High quality algaes do, thus they grow slower.
 
The best explanation of this comes from The Plankton Culture Manual by Frank Hoff and William Snell.  Those pioneers go into good detail.  I consider it the bible of live foods.  It has been around for 20 years through a dozen upgrades and you should be able to get used copies on Amazon.   If anyone should earn a Pulitzer prize for larviculture, they deserved it for that one!  Frank Hoff also wrote a long and technical book on culturing clownfish.  Although harder for a casual hobbyist to read it is also full of knowledge.  

Sorry it it sound like a lecture, but just a couple other points.  Bacteria are much smaller than a micron and viruses even much smaller still, and very hard to filter out.  Think of trying to catch mosquitos with a chain link fence and you get the idea.  Many organisms have life stages like eggs or resting cysts that are not only very small, but also very resistant to filtration.  They may survive chlorination or UV treatment.
 
As a general rule bacteria don't hurt phyto cultures because they provide some things that plants don't.  Bacteria are good at synthesizing B vitamins but have low fat content.  Phyto is good at making lipids and fats but poor at making vitamins, so a mix is usually a good thing.  Ciliates and protozoa are from a few microns to at least 50 microns and MUST be prevented from your phyto cultures.  Weed algaes like nanno can be just a few microns in size and should not be allowed into the cultures of Iso or higher quality algaes like Pavlova or Rhodomonas.   Batch methods have the algae growing first, the contaminants need time to catch up so are less prone to crashing.
 
If you're growing nanno, don't worry about all the stuff above.  If you want a high quality, slow grower with good nutrition then worry about contamination.   UV and ozone can help kill the harder stuff that 1 micron filters cannot, but 1 micron is a very good filter to have on your air supply.  If you really want to be serious about larviculture, try growing continuous cultures of highly nutritious phyto in a reactor, where you have 25% clean water, fertilizer and air entering a closed culture container daily, and 25% greenwater produced from the culture each day.    Florida Aqua Farms has some good rack setups where you can do this with plastic bags and not worry about sterilizing containers in between cultures.
 
Sorry if this sounds like a lecture.  I don't mean to do that.
 
 

 
I don't know what you mean by this Dave.  I don't understand what is 25%.  Do you mean that you harvest 25% per day replacing that volume with fresh culture medium?
I have both of the Hoff books you speak of.  It's about due time I read them again.  I find every time I read them I have a "light bulb" moment or two of, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that!" or "Ahhh, I get it now!".  Thanks for reminding me of the books.
 
Don't worry about it sounding like a lecture.  Provided the "lecturer" knows what he's talking about, a lecture can be a priceless thing! 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

My apologies for being overly complex.  If you trade in 2 liter cola bottles for larger plastic bags and seal the bags well you can grow semi-continuous cultures instead of batch cultures.  With good light and nutrients a phyto culture will grow by about 25%-30% a day, so you will supply that much clean and fertilized water to the culture while harvesting 25%-30% greenwater.  Without contamination, you could theoretically do this forever and keep the phyto culture in an exponential growth phase.
 
But at least you will produce enough algae for large populations of calanoid copepods.  And calanoids are about the only types of copepods that will reliably stay suspended in the water for a long time under light.  Actually cyclipoids can do that too.  
 
I even hear that after many generations in culture, some harpacticoids can be "leaned" or selectively bred for pelagic behavior during daylight hours.  If anyone gets to that point before me, let me pay you good money for a culture sample!
 
Keep studying Hoff book.  As a scientist, his writing wasn't edited by an English major, but he put all the information in there.

Why does it have to be in bags to be a continuous culture? I've kept Isochrysis in batch, in gallon jars, but it is a continuous culture, and in log growth.
 
25 % a day is pretty fast.  You say that algae has to grow slowly to be nutritious? not sure that is accurate. 

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

More good points, Kathy.  And I hope you didn't take offense that "a serious culturist has a different setup".  I didn't mean to use a phrase that offends and I apologize if it did.  
 
You don't need bags for continuous culture, but there's so much more stability from a two or five gallon bag than 2l cola bottles.   Keeping log growth in a gallon jar by hand is certainly doable with your skill level.  I personally prefer a large new bag to bottle serilization.  But use whatever system works for you.  
 
There is no problem with batch cultures, or extending batch cultures as you do into semi-continuous cultures by regular harvest and replacement of new water and fertilizer.  I just ask other people to consider that a dosing pump, controller and better air sterilization for ease, consistency and longer term cultures.  In your case experience may replace equipment.     
 
Yes, 25% daily growth is a lot, especially for algaes not named nannochloropsis and chlorella.  It depends on many things.  I'm using that figure because that what automated systems get.  Diatoms are fast growers and keep positively bouyant with an oil droplet in each cell which makes them good culture organisms.  But I think there is more to the picture than just EPA and DHA.  And trust me that the more vitamins an algae has to synthesize, the slower it grows.  
 
But you bring up another good point.  One thing about artemia or rotifers is that they grow and reproduce on weed algaes.  If this are your target food and your target larvae are clowns you can get by with nanno and iso.  But even then my opinion is that its better to nutrient pack with a higher quality algae before feeding.  You may not agree.  Whether you are aiming at clownfish or harder larvae I think an automated continuous culture is to be easier, although your opinion is different.  There is room for both.   
 
Continue with the system you have, it works.  I'm not saying that you're not a serious culturist if you don't have a more automated setup.  But I am saying that bag cultures with dosing pumps and air filtration are better for automated growing of more nutritious algae.  I even think they will work better for nanno and iso.
 
 

Dave, you bring up many good points, in my opinion, and this is a very interesting thread.  I personally love automation, and will be following this with interest.  Please don't leave out the details!
PS. no offense taken, or even noticed. There are many ways to do most anything, and the way I've chosen is not necessarily the best way for everyone. It is majorly refreshing to see a different approach.  

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Thanks Kathy.  
 
I'm glad you're interested in automation.  For $50 you can get a genuine Italian Arduino Mega, which will run relays (switches) to turn on and off at least 50 electrical devices to the millisecond.  A Chinese knockoff (funduino) costs $25.  Small dosing pumps, solenoids and stepper motors can be found on ebay in the $10 range.  This is so much cheaper than our free time with our families.  Programming C language is not my forte (I'm completely ignorant in that regard) but put all that together and the machines work for you instead of you being tied 24 hours to a larval run.    
 
However it takes a well seasoned culturist like yourself to constantly tinker with the program timing.  Biology is the furthest thing from an exact science and larviculture teeters on a fine line.  Too little food is death from starvation.  Too much is death from poor water.  Each day the population is not only grows exponentially, but the loss rate changes the formula.  What may have been good yesterday for 1,000 larvae won't work today for 500.  
 
We are crazy for trying to fit nature into a programmed formula.  But it's fun to try.  And IMHO a large system is less work than a small one because a large one can be automated.  I will probably fail in my quest to grow angels, but even a low success is acceptable if you start with 5,000 eggs a day.  I may not be smart but every day I can tinker with formulas and timers until I see something change for the better.   Either that or I'll have to abandon my efforts and find a way to live with 100 pygmy angels in a reef tank.  Poor, poor pitiful me as Linda Ronstadt would say. 

 
My apologies, I overlooked the terminology differences between "batch culture" and "continuous culture".
 
On the terminology subject, the word "algae" is plural where the word "alga" is singular.  So the word "algaes" is not correct.  Essentially "algae" is "algas" haha!  I don't mean to be a smart(butt) about it, but we should be correct. 
 
I believe (haha) the following sentences are correct:
 
"Tetraselmis is the only alga I am currently culturing."
"There are three algae in my culture room."
 
From a biological standpoint, it would make sense for slower growing algae to be more nutritious, so I do "trust you" on that one, although the words "trust me" usually lead into a dark void! 

Don't let fear and common sense stop you! =]

If you begin on grammar and spelling or you'll never be able to devote time to your fish!  I still forget whether its isochrysis or isochrisys.  And at my adancing age a correction only helps a few hours before I forget.  My favorite terms for copepods are "euryhaliness and eurytherminess" which are my butchered words for how much salinity and heat they can tolerate.  And you're right that the last people to trust are the ones who say "just trust me".   And at my advancing age a correction only helps a few hours before I forget.  (ha, ha)
 
Do what works for you, but get that nerdy teenage nephew to tell you how to program your controller or arduino so that you can add a few solenoid valves and dosing pumps to your setup.  I think you'll be glad you did.  

 
.  

The last time i looked at solenoids, they were $50 to $350 each, but I just checked ebay, and Dave's right. This will not be as expensive as I originally thought.  Continue!

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Don't let Matt Pedersen see this thread or it will be taken up by his opinions on the use of data as a plural or as a singular noun. Please.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

Kathy, a few words of warning.  First, yes there are $10 saltwater solenoids on ebay.  They are cheap and probably will not last a long time, I'm guessing maybe a year but that's just a wild guess.  They are also the type that function without a lot of back pressure which is good.  They are advertised as gravity feed which is fine for me, but more than something like 3 p.s.i. and they leak.  But please be a healthy skeptic about any chinese solenoid that claims to be saltwater safe.  I'm going to use them but I'm also prepared for them to fail after a while.
 
You can buy higher quality 3/4" saltwater safe solenoids for $90 too.  I'm sure they are better quality and will last longer.  However they may need 15 p.s.i. back pressure to operate.  
 
Finally, there is the motorized ball valve at more money and even higher quality.  
 
All of these will do the job.  I think the difficulty isn't the hardware but software.  You may need solenoid A to open for 5 minutes,  then solenoid B for five min, then have pump aa turn on for 3 minutes, then have solenoid C turn on for 30 seconds.  This may sound easy in principle but when you begin troubleshooting the program or sketch you'll find that it is never that easy.  And there are all the miscellaneous things that can happen.  A piece of algae gets caught in the solenoid and keeps it from closing.  The house power goes out.  You try to increase the time that one applicance is on and it interferes with the sequence of the other appliances.  
 
It's not for the faint of heart.

Have any of you gained any experience with the water filter for air or the automation?  I would be happy to volunteer any programming help that might be needed.    My first run with Iso has likely failed so I need to replan, improve, and retry.