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During the past several years GARF has been researching captive culture of many predatory soft corals. One of the things that is needed to conduct this research is a steady source of fresh phytoplankton. We have developed a method that we jokingly referred to as Bag O Bugs. Using strong plastic bags to culture the phytoplankton has several advantages. We have noticed that cultures of green water go through a life cycle. We are now able to start several new cultures each day. As soon as the bags become contaminated with Diatoms and other Algae we simply remove the bag from the rack and discard it. We have developed a very simple efficient way to harvest the phytoplankton. These four pictures show how we harvest 5 gal. of green water each day. The predatory corals system has a very effective biological filtration. We remove 5 gal. of water from the predatory coral tanks to make room for the green water. We use a maxi jet 1200 pump to refill the Bag O Bugs system using the water that we have removed from the culture tank. The three bags in the lower left hand corner of this picture were started five days ago. These three bags were filled with fresh sterile Instant ocean water. Using an aquarium air hose a small amount of water from one of the upper bags was filtered through two coffee filters. It is very simple to isolate distinct strains of algae by filtering 1 cup of water in to the first of these three bags. One tablespoon of water from the first bag is then added to the second bag. One tablespoon of water from the second bag is then added to the third sterile bag. This summer we will be including free samples of our strains of a algae that can be frozen and used as ice packs in our shipments. Please ask Lionel or Brian to include a Bag O Bugs kit with your order. This kit contains several of the plastic bags and two different starter cultures of rotifers and green water. Lionel and Brian can be reached at 1-800-600-6163. If you want to build one of these racks you can attach the bags to a 1 in. square piece of wood by a window or 40 W fluorescent light.
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FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS WE HAVE WORKED VERY HARD TO PURCHASE, TRADE, AND SAVE AS MANY TYPES OF CORALS AS WE CAN.
We are having a special on all of the coral cuttings. WHEN YOU PURCHASE 5 AT THE REGULAR PRICE OF $100 WE WILL GIVE YOU TWO FREE CORALS!. We will continue to provide the most current data on reef farming for both education and profit.