My first ALGAE PBR photobioreactor

This first Photobioreactor,  PBR for short PBR, was inspired by another instructable found at -  http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-an-Algae-Photo-BioreactorPart-One/ - a six part series that basically ends with - BUY THE BOOK.

So I decided to design my own. This first, probably in a long series,  model was something I designed and implemented on a whim.

This PBR is a simple L-Shaped stand with 10 T8 florescent tube protectors. 1 1/4" pvc endcaps glued on bottom end with pvc glue. 10 Top domed end caps are removable. I then drilled 1/16 inch holes and installed an air stone and drain tube using 1/16 inch rigid aquarium air tubing in the bottom flat end caps and installed drain tubing and aquarium control valves at the ends., and a 1/16 inch hole in the loose domed top end caps.

I then used my front pond water sample consisting of 500 ml of small yard pond water form my front yard and bubble air from an aquarium air pump for a week to create my innoculum.

 I placed varying amounts of inocculum in each of the 10 tubes to see which ones did the best.

as you can see from the last images 3,4 and 5 did the best by far and they concisted of varying amounts of innoculum and miracle grow and water. None of these tubes had any media in them because I hadnt followed the second set on instructions in the first instructable.

At any rate here is the progressive images over a 10 day period..

10/15/2016 

10/16/2016

10/17/2016

10/18/2016

10/19/2016

10/20/2016

10/21/2016

10/22/2016

10/24/2016

10/25/2016

As you can see there tubes 3,4,5 was did the best. 6-10 had varying mg measurements of  TRIPLE 19, 19N,19P,19K and even the smallest amount of this high powered fertilzer was too much, I hypothesize, and burned it up. Tubes 1 and 2 had a secret, readily available, mystery liquid fertilizer and they came is second.

With this setup there was multiple issues.

1. The lighting was horizontal to the tubing and therefore not a good dispersion of the grow light to the tubes. Needed to be vertical like the tubes for better light absorbtion.

2. Another limiting factor is that my shed does not have heating. I needed a way to keep the algae between experiments between 70 and 80 degrees.

3. The whole apparatus is bulky.

The heat issue could be taken care of by enclosing the apparatus and spending an exorbitant amount of money on heating the small interious with timed incandescent lighting - etc.

In the end I decided best solution was to just bring the entire apparatus INSIDE the house and it should stay around 70 to 80 degrees in my office.

Better light dispersion could be obtained by building the vertical tubing around the lighting. So I ended up building a semicircular apparatus using only one grow light.

Hence this guys instructable design is better - http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-an-Algae-Photo-BioreactorPart-One/

But all of this is mute without proper growth media!!

In my next post I will discuss my soilwater growth media fiasco.