Hey guys. I am trying to acclimatize seaweed of Kappaphycus alvarezii in a recirculating system with filtration (corals, carbon active, filter cotton and bioball). I preserved the fresh, healthy seaweed in a cool box of 4 degree celcius from seaweed cultivation field to my laboratory in about 9 hours. Right after arriving at the laboratory, I placed the seaweed in chilled condition in the aquarium filled with seawater. Then in about 5 hours after that, I observed the seaweed's appearance and realized that the seaweed appeared to be wrinkled and shrinked; there were also thick green lines in about 1 cm which I assume to be the chlorophylls, while the rest of the seaweed color is still green but less green than the ''chlorophylls''.
I presume that there were mistakes in the method of preservation. Is it ok to still preserve the seaweed in chilled condition to acclimatize it in the laboratory? Or maybe I should have waited the cold seaweed to turn warmer in a room temperature before placing it in the aquarium...
Could someone please help me with this?
Thank you very much beforehand :)
Dear Nur Shabrina,
You could just cool down the seawater a little bit during transportation to the lab. Usually we transport live algae in coolers (isothermal boxes made of plastic or styrofoam) with plenty of local seawater and aeration (if density is too high) with one or two ice packs to keep temperatures lower than air temperature (here in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, air temperature is sometimes 20oC higher than seawater temperature). You usually don't need to cool down the water too much, or you run the risk of killing the algae. However, I do not have much previous experience with Kappaphycus, but it seems to be quite resistant, it is possible it survives your cold transportation. By the way, your recirculating filter system seems to be fine, but are you exposing the algae to any light? irradiance is very important to keep algae in the lab!
I have transported Padinas and they have survived. First, I put the thallus in a closed plastic bag with seawater, enought to cover the holdfast and control the humidity. Then I put the bags on a cooler with ice. Padinas are adapted to stand dehydration (as they could be exposed during low tide) and the humidity of the bags were enought to survive. The trip to Lab lasted one day.
Maybe this experience could help you.
Regards
I would rather transport Kappaphyus alvarezii without seawater, but under cool conditions. This alga can tolerate desiccation of moderate proportion. Please ascertain that there is no direct contact of ice packs with alga, use plenty of thermocol pieces for this purpose, by this way there shall be less physiological damage. After transporting it to desired destination put algal material with sufficient seawater under ambient conditions and then acclimatize slowly to the culture conditions of your choice. It may take a week or two for the algal samples to start growing, although some tissue may perish.
It all depends on what kind of experiments you are following, experiments studying physiology required different protocol. However in all the cases too much cool conditions might hamper the prospects of algal survival.
Acclimatize to what? What is the temperature of the water where you make your collection and what is the temperature of the water in your aquarium? I suppose (hope) they are quite similar. So, why have these seaweeds endure 4 C for 9 hours of transportation? I would not call that acclimatization, but an unnecessary stress (your seaweeds in Indonesia never experience 4 C conditions). Just transport your seaweeds humid (not in water) in plastic bags (grocery bags will do the trick) in a cooler. Add a few ice packs (bottom of cooler/in between the bags depending on how big and packed is your cooler) and you should be fine. Seaweeds are used to low tide (your transportation time... well, 9 hours is pushing it!). Add a little extra seaweeds, compared to what you need, so that they act as buffers and the ones in the middle of the bag will be fine.
Another thing to check: what other stress could you be adding? Water quality? Are the water at the point of collection and the water in your aquarium similar in salinity for example? Other parameters? Nutrients? pH? Etc.
So, reduce stress and do not induce unnecessary ones. Maybe "acclimatization" is not that needed. It also depends on what you do next and what kind of experiments you plan to do.
I think when you reduce 4 degree celcius from seaweed cultivation field to your laboratory in about 9 hours, Kappaphycus will be die. Because Kappaphycus could not survice below 150C and the optimum temperature range was 25 to 280C. So you can transport Kappaphyus alvarezii without seawater, temperature is 250C in box.
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