The start of this experiment.

Algae sample from my front yard pond - weeks grow in miracle grow media.

I have grown algae before in the past without doing my researched  and the algae always did fine for a while then just died. So I started to research what is required to properly grow and sustain an algae system.

What algae need to live -

Algae reproduce very quickly and need only sunlight (or another form of energy, like sugar), water, carbon dioxide and a few inorganic nutrients to grow.


My first experiments I used filtered tap water (to remove the chlorine ), sunlight, CO2 from aquarium air pump and miracle grow.

That system worked for a while but it always reached a certain point of grown and then would stop growing and eventually the algae died and fell to the bottom.

Finally,I followed this Instructable - Simple Algae Home CO2 Scrubber - Part 1 - 
http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Algae-Home-CO2-Scrubber-Part-1/?ALLSTEPS

I assumed that one only needed to continuously feed the algae with nothing more than miracle grow and sunlight. But I apparently was mistaken. I was missing an important ingredient - nutrients.

The Instructable above is actually perfect for scrubbing CO2 from the air or for maintaining a sample. but not very efficient or controllable.

The next instructable Simple Algae Home CO2 Scrubber - Part II Algae Cultures and Breeding - http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Algae-Home-CO2-Scrubber-Part-II-Culturing/
goes into more detail about how to cultivate and culture algae under more controllable conditions.

I have searched extensively for different instructables and different follow along tutorials but the two above are the best I have found so far.

Another important goal in Algaculturing is to eliminate competing strains of alga and other microscopic organism that can decimate your algal population.

Dictionary.com
Cultivation - the planting, tending, improving, or harvesting of crops or plants - http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cultivation

Culturing -  to grow (microorganisms, tissues, etc.) in or on a controlled or defined medium - http://www.dictionary.com/browse/culturing?s=t

Breeding - . the improvement or development of breeds of livestock.
- http://www.dictionary.com/browse/breeding?s=t 


The next step would be to growing or production -  incrementally grow up your culture to larger and larger quantity. This was another issue that I was not aware of until researching. One can not just take a small sample and throw it into a large growing vessel and be done. This thins out the algal colony and it will crash. Slowly working up to larger and larger vessels will allow the algae to develop properly.

So with these two instructables one takes several algae samples from several different locations, streaks a petri dish with homemade algae growth media and agar. Select individual colonies that have grown in the petri dish, thereby eliminating other species as much as possible. Then produce up to a photobioreactor.

So here is a list of steps.

1. Build a photobioreactor - see my next post
2. Build an incubator.
3. Create growth media from soil sampled from several locations
4. Create petri dishes with growth media and agar 
5. Streak the petri dish
6. Grown colonies inside the incubator
7. Select which colonies you want to produce, several - depending on how many photobioreactor chambers you have.
8. Grow colonies inside incrementatlly larger containers until it is large enough to be put inside the photobioreactor chambers with algae growth media.
9. Monitor which colonies does best, all under the same conditions.
10. Experiment with different conditions for the your choice species or strains.

If have found out early on that the most time consuming part, at least for me, is building and designing the photobioreactor and incubator.

The photobioreactor design needs to allow sufficient amounts of light for the algae to grow, proper stirring or mixing of the grow media / culture to maximize light coverage and growth, to maximize CO2 absorption and maintain proper temperature levels.

The Incubator design needs to allow sufficient amounts of light for the algae to grow in the agar petri dishes, proper light coverage and maintain proper temperature levels.

I have tried a couple of design configurations already and run them in my workshop. This is where the temperature control becomes and issue.

It is fall time, almost winter, in my area and the night time temperatures are already dropping into the forties. Most Algae species will automatically stop growing and hibernate in these temperatures or even completely die out.,

Now, in the second Instructable above and several other reference websites suggest using a lamp or lgith to raise the temperature. Which is fine if you wish to have constant illumination, but even algae have to have time to rest Temperatures need be in the 80's and 90's depending on the strain / species.

Designing a compact PBR and Incubator is challenging AND ALOT OF FUN.

See next post for what I have done so far and what conclusions I have arrived at.