u/Jojoscre8tions

I bought myself phytoplankton and F2 instead. I'm super excited to get it and start cultivating for my babies ☺️. I found this company on eBay, and this is such a great price. The other company with the combo wanted $27 for an 8-oz bottle of each, after taxes, it would have come out to $30. I paid $36 for this kit after taxes and got 4x the phyto and 2x the fertilizer, plenty to dose my tank and start a few cultures. They also have Nannochloropsis, Chlorella, and a freshwater variety. I went with the Tetraselmis as my first phyto because it's pretty hardy and easy to cultivate. Here's a link to the one I got, for anyone interested. The other strains can be found in their other Items for sale.

https://ebay.us/m/1CNSPj

Happy early Mother's Day to all the Moms in here 💓

I keep a grow light over my tank for the macroalgae since it requires 12+ hrs of full-spectrum light to thrive. After doing some research I found that Dragon's Tongue macroalgae isn't harmful for brine shrimp and helps keep water nutrient levels even. So I got some from a local saltwater enthusiast who was trimming his tank. Unfortunately, it came with scuds that are not easy to get rid of but as long as the population doesn't get too big and there's plenty of food they should coexist with my brine shrimp and keep the algae population under control if I accidentally overfeed. I've had this tank set up for just about 2 months now wanting to give it time to cycle, which actually happened pretty fast since the owner of the Dragon's tongue also supplied me with some of his established tank water. I hatched out some brine shrimp eggs about two weeks ago and so far they seem to be doing well. They still resemble little jumpy water bugs right now but I'm excited to see them mature and start swimming around. Don't mind the cloudy water I moved the Macroalgae around earlier to shake off some of the food that had settled on it. I also have a heater set to 80°F and an air stone with a regulator so it only trickles air into the tank. Probably don't need the air stone with the macroalgae since it will provide oxygen but I like to have a small amount of circulation to the water. I use Coralife BioCube Marine Salt for my water it has water purifiers in it and is meant to be made with tap water. And I'm feeding ground-up algae pellets soaked in water for better dispersion. I plan on getting live algae at some point to start a culture but I'm not quite ready to spend the $27 for a culture until I get a tank set up to grow it in. I think that about covers it I can't wait to share my progress with everyone 💜