after isolating cylindrotheca and skeletonema from algal blooming, some algal grazer were found like cotswolds and copepod that feed on our isolated algae in few days. so how we can kill these grazer to safe our culture?
Place the algal concentrated slurry along with the contaminants in a somewhat thick plastic bag, 1/2 to 3/4ths filled with plankton water. Remove all the superficial air & replace it with Carbon-di-oxide gas under slight pressure & tie the bag air tight & place it in a fridge overnight.
By next day, all these contaminants would have died & you will get contaminant free algal cells.
In outdoor micro-ecosystems of a few cubic meters I used a commercial insecticide. Tthis consisted of a sloly evaporating substance containing dichlorvos, a nerve gas; if you opened the box, it would kill mosquitos in the room. we blew air through the box with an aquarium aeration pump and bubbled this in the vat. no animals with nerves would survive. I do not know whether this stuff still is sold anywhere.
Why not start a new culture? You can isolate a few cells with the use of a pipet and a stereo microscope. Then you will have a relatively pure culture, at least one free of animals.
I would go for re-stocking the culture as Maria suggested.
Otherwise, salt-stress can help killing animals (minutes to hours are enough) but not algae (they usually survive during several hours/days).
We found good results using quinine sulphate. Please check our paper available from RG:
Moreno-Garrido, I. & Cañavate, J.P. 2001. Assessing chemical compounds for controlling predator ciliates in outdoor mass cultures of the green algae Dunaliella salina. Aquacultural Engineering 24, 107-114.
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