What are crucial parameters that should be considered in Dinoflagellates cultivation?
Hi Puganeswary
There are several things to consider but it really depends on the type of Dino you are growing. For example when growing heterotrophic DInophysis you need to feed them Mesodinium which in turn are fed cryptophytes. When growing certain species you need certain trace elements which you might not need with others. One thing I would suggest is growing them at 100uE light, an appropriate temperature and salinity and no agitation,bubbling. I have had good success growing fragile dinoflagellates like Cochlodinium polykrikoides in GSe medium made with boiled and then filter sterilised natural seawater (collected from the coastal North Atlantic) or even made with Sea Salts (artificial seawater). If you have any specific questions about certain organisms feel free to ask. Id also like to point out that my colleague Ying-Zhang Tang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (in my contacts here) can grow pretty much any dinoflagellate so he might be a good person to reach out to with specific questions.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!
Tq, Dr. Florian Koch. Actually, im culturing Gonyaulax apiculata and Gymnodinium palustre (from lake) in laboratory condition. But, its not growing. Could please suggest me a suitable medium and environmental condition for these species?
Hi Puganeswary
Unfortunately i do not have much experience with freshwater cultures BUT https://ncma.bigelow.org/media/pdf/NCMA-algal-medium-BG-11.pdf has a treasure troth of media recipes. I would think that you should grow them at 100uEi of light and a comparable temp from when you isolated them. The BG-11 media is widely used for cyanos but with the addition of vitamins (important especially for dinos) this should work as well. You can buy the media but i usually make it from scratch according to the recipes. Im sorry I can’t help you more with the specific freshwater species. Keep in mind there is a little bit of unscientific ‘green thumb’ involved in culturing, especially dinoflagellates.
Good luck!
Puganeswary, my experience with dinoflagellates is strictly marine; however, I just wanted to add that dinoflagellates tend to start off growing more quickly if you give them a larger volume of starter culture. Then once the culture starts growing, I dilute it gradually over the course of a week until I reach the volume of culture I need for experiments. Good luck!
Hello Puganeswary,
also my experience in culturing dinoflagellates is strictly marine. By the way, I had success in culturing the species Amphidinium carterae using f/2 medium (Guillard, 1975) without addition of silicates, at about 22°C and at 10, 100 & 300 umol photons (light/dark cycle 12:12h). Under these conditions, the phase of exponential growth was reached in 2/3 days.
Hope this help!
Hi Puganeswary
I want to share my experience in culturing dinoflagellate from the genus Scripsiella. I isolated them from the bay (Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island) and these isolated cells were placed in an incubator with a photoperiod of 12:12 hour (light:dark cycle), at light intensities of 62-89 µmol photons.m-2.s and at a temperature of 20°C in f/2-Si medium. They grew well in 150 mL flasks. Good luck
I have had good experience in getting dinoflagellate cultures started using a soil extract based media. After the culture is established it can be maintained on f/2 media or similar. Good luck!
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