Easy way to culture green water

[HappyGuppy]

Hey folks,

Some of you who knew me over the past few years know that I alway deliberately cultured green water.  It is amazing stuff - fish steroids.  Since getting back into the hobby again I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to start a new culture.  I put a few jars in the window, but nothing. 

I speculate that there were two problems.  1)  I had peroxided my tanks before... perhaps I wiped out the unicellular algae and thus didn't have a starter in my tanks.  2)  The windows are freezing cold... perhaps too cold for the culture to get a fast start.

Desperate to get a green water going I tried something new.  It is, IMHO, a pretty good alternate way to get green water if the windowsill is too cold (I speculate that the cold might have had something to do with the failure, but am not certain).

I filled a clear plastic drinking bottle (500ml size) about 3/4 full with tank water.  I put in some pinches of mealworm poop, though some detritus from the fish tank would do.  I also took a small pinch of soil from two potted plants in my home - surely there must be some of the right algae growing on the surface there.  I put in a couple of marbles into the bottle to weigh down the bottom so that the bottle floats upright.  Twisted the plastic top to seal the bottle, then placed it floating in an aquarium under the lights.  The aquarium is heated.  Once a day I gently agitate the bottle.

I am pleased to report that I now have pea soup in the bottle.  Will be using this to seed larger batches.  Will try pouring some into a batch by the window and see if it'll green up, or whether it really is too cold. 

So the point of this post is that there is an alternate way to culture the green water besides the windowsill method, or next to a lamp (good alternative).  A bottle floated in an aquarium that is warm with lighting should do the trick too. 

Bonus Tip:  Something I did in the past, but unfortunately did not have any this time available, is to make dry backup starters.  Some strips of paper towel or coffee filters, dipped into pea soup green water, then let dry can then be stored indefinitely.  Later to start up the culture just take tank water in a jar (or bottle) and insert a strip of the paper.