Dosing Phytoplankton in Saltwater Aquariums/Tanks
Phytoplankton are basically the microscopic plant-like organisms, photosynthetic creatures that drift about in the ocean and absorb the sunlight turning it into delicious sugars. Phytoplankton happens to be key for your saltwater tanks looking at the fact that in the end the filter feeding invertebrates such as the clams, corals and sponges will get to eat on them for their nutrition. Generally speaking, phytoplankton has been deemed a sure source of good nutrition for marine life for the fact that they happen to contain such high concentration of the Omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids which are a dietary requirement for the majority if not all of the invertebrate marine life.
Talking of the phytoplankton strains that you can grow at home for your saltwater tanks, there are three basic and most common kinds. These are the Nannochloropsis, Isochrysis, and Tetraselmis. Looking at all these strains, the one that happens to be most common and popular is Nannochloropsis. The Nannochloropsis strain of the phytoplankton is seen as being one that is so well balanced in the phytoplankton strains as they have rather relatively higher levels of the fatty acids, HUFAs and EPA, which happen to be quite essential for the growth of the larval fishes. Thus if at all you are looking forward at breeding saltwater fish, Nannochloropsis is the phytoplankton strain that you may be well advised to start with. Over and above this, Nannochloropsis has as well been deemed to be a good fit for saltwater aquariums for the fact that it has some antibacterial properties.
By and large, the choice will be yours to make as to whether you will be culturing your own phytoplankton or not. The reality that you need to note is that when it comes to the need to culture and grow your own, it will take you some investment in time and energy for you to set up the culture station and have the phytoplankton strain to grow. Besides this in as much as the strains will be as hardy to grow afterwards, there will be a need for you to spare some time monitoring and for maintenance of the culture set up on a daily basis. Alternatively to growing your own and suffering all the inconvenience of maintenance and or risk of crashing, you can make use of the available commercial phytoplankton strains and dose your saltwater tank with these instead.
Note the fact that many aquarists do dose phytoplankton into their aquariums as a supplement to the feeding schedule given the fact that they happen to be so natural and nutritious food sources for marine life.