Prorocentrum lima

New daughter set created every four weeks

Daughter set……….…16umol quanta m-2 s-1

Mother set………….….16umol quanta m-2 s-1

Grandmother set….….5umol quanta m-2 s-1

Q: We order a starter culture of CCMP 686 onJanuary 20and received the culture on February 9, 2017. Since we received the culture, while it has not crashed, the culture has not grown. The cells that I find have been healthy (although non-motile) but despite growing for a month they still have not increased in abundance. Additionally, all cells have been found clumped at the bottom of the test tube. The culture is being kept at 15C with a12:12light:dark cycle and were transferred (using L1+Si) according to methods outlined in your culture care sheet. Please advise as to the best steps to take in order to help get this culture growing.

A: Some of our P. lima strains do not swim, so the bottom clumping does not necessarily alarm me. The lack of growth, however, is a different story. Some of the questions found on our FAQs (see item #12) may be a good place to start. Also, if you have incubators at different temperatures, you could try growing it at 20 (this strain was isolated from Vigo, Spain). We use a13:11light:dark cycle. I am guessing that is not a problem, but I just put it out there. And our L1-Si medium is made with seawater that is 33ppt. What sort of light intensity are you growing it at? What sort of culture vessel are you using? A flask could work better than a tube, for example. Also, sometimes plastic is toxic to individual strains. Let us continue to correspond and see if we can sort this out.