Premium Live Algae Cultures for Filter Feeders

The Three Core Biological Pillars

Choose from a variety of high density, axenic phytoplankton cultures with zero contamination, harvested fresh. Starter cultures can be used for feeding aquariums. Our cultures are highly concentrated at around 40 million CFU per ml.

Sterile Live Cultures

Tailored Strains

Encounter a variety of phytoplankton strains ranging from the red algae Rhodomonas to the green Tetraselmis so your filter feeders can proliferate and grow. We provide rare compounds like the rare ARA lipid and 22-dehydrocholesterols for nutrition beyond plain monocultures.

Phytoplankton blends are shipped separately in order to prevent interspecies competition, and organized into ratios to ensure complete lipid profiles. Utilize microalgae blends and monocultures to cover the full nutritional profile of your organisms. Digestible microalgae ranging from 1-100 microns. Backed by biology articles and experiments, we strive to improve our algae everyday with applied phycology.

Optimized Ratios

In the wild, a bivalve larva’s life is a lottery. They drift through vast oceans in a planktonic state, hoping to encounter a "patch" of nutrient-dense phytoplankton. Most starve before they ever find one.

At Orr Biologicals, we don't believe in luck. Our feed provides the exact cellular density found in the world’s most productive estuaries. Use the calculator below to ensure your filter feeders aren't just surviving, but thriving with the nutrition of the elite one percent.

Nutritionally Optimal Phytoplankton

At Orr Biologicals, our phytoplankton blends and live cultures are designed to address all the nutritional requirements of a variety of filter feeders.

- High EPA, ARA, and DHA lipid profiles

- Protein, Amino Acids, Carbohydrates for energy

Copepods for example can consume a simple blend of nannochloropsis and isochrysis and be perfectly fine! However, we go further with sensitive filter feeders like Tridacnid clams, which have complex fatty acid and sterol requirements. In sensitive organisms like these, we specialize in delivering multiple phytoplankton strains while alive to prevent malnutrition. We grow our cultures clean, so your filter feeders do not need to worry about being wiped out in 48 hours by a Vibrio bacteria infection.

We ship our algae as fast as possible, preferably overnight or 2-day shipping. We try not to ship Thursday or Friday to prevent your precious living green gold from staying in a hot warehouse over the weekend. If you have weather in your area that will be hazardous to the algae culture, we WILL withhold your package and wait for a better time. If there is an emergency, you can purchase our $10 ultra-insulated packages and we will ship it anyways.

The Flowchart