Handling and lighting
This organism needs to keep a cycle of 12h daylight - 12h darkness. The best way to keep it easy for you and not worry too much is to build a box with a bulb and a timer. Here are some points to respect:
- Use a “cool white fluo bulb”. Incandescent bulbs produce heat that could harm the organism in the end.
- Keep a distance of 14 inches between the organisms and the light source.
- Connect the light source to a timer program to switch on and off every 12 hours.
- Keep the box in a room that the temperature will be around 19°C to 24°C (optimal T°=22°C)
Cultivating
Taking care of Pyrocystis Fusiformis is pretty simple. You don't have to feed them, but you do need to put them in the proper medium and to split the culture every 3 to 4 weeks. To start with, you need a starting culture. It could be your friend's one that you split in two... they reproduce fast. Otherwise, you can buy a starting culture with different companies. I ordered mine here.
The medium I used to grow Bioluminescent Dinoflagellates is Carolina. This is a ready-to-use medium. You can also do it yourself by using sea salt water and f/2 medium. This medium provides the organisms the nutrients they need in order to grow in such dense concentration cultures. I bought mine here. Every 3 to 4 weeks, you will need to split the culture in two and put some fresh medium. This will help the reproduction of your culture.
Alternative way
Adreas Greiner, an artist working with Pyrocystis Fusiformis, shared with me his own way to grow this Algae for artistic purposes. It is pretty similar, but with some variations that are quite useful in preparation of an exhibition.
- The use of Blue light
The worst enemy of Bioluminescent Algae are Green Algae, that are often contaminating the cultures. As they grow faster, they will consume the nutrients and air in a higher level, which can affect the Bioluminescent Algae in a bad way. In order to limit the growth of the Green Algae, you can use Blue lights instead of a cool daylight bulb. This light will not affect the Bioluminescent Algae as they are still able to do Photosynthesis with it, in opposition to the Green Algae that absolutely needs daylight in order to perform this process.
Be careful with these lights, they generate more heat than a “cool white fluo bulb”. Be sure to have some aeration or install them in a bigger space than a box. I tried the setup on this photo, the lighting works, but the temperature raised up to 28°C overnight.
- The amount of light
A few weeks before the exhibition, extending the light cycle by a few hours (ex: 14h light / 10h dark) will provide more photosynthesis to the organisms and will thus gives more illumination during the night cycle.
- Splitting the culture
In preparation for an exhibition, Greiner splits his cultures every week in order to have a sufficient amount of algae for the duration of the show. For storage purposes in between events, he stops splitting them but continues the lighting cycles. This is a way of stopping the reproduction without arming them.
- Glowing
The Pyrocystis Fusiformis can glow at any moment... or almost. The organism will never glow while it is doing photosynthesis, but if you cut the light (even in the middle of the light cycle), they will need around one hour to adapt and then will be able to glow. This is a good tip for tests purposes. Just remember that they are like batteries, they need time to recharge. That means if you cut their photosynthesis in half, they will not emit as much light as if they complete their cycle.
Documentation and references
- Carolina Care Sheet
- Pyrocystis Medium provided by Sciento: File:Pyrocystis Medium 2 pages.pdf
- DIY recipe (I didn't try this one, but it seems good.)