Thats right I WANT to grow algae. There were no water garden or aquarium threads so I'll post here. I want to grow Chlorella pyrenoidosa a type of algae used in homeopathic chelation. I want to grow a lot of it too. I would like to know other than a really good grow bulb and bubbler for the aquarium what other nutrients can I use. This will be a sterile environment, so no fish or other plants. Trying to find a source is difficult, so I was wondering if algae comes back after it dries out? If so I can buy a bottle of the capsules and dump a few in there. Any other suggestion would be helpful.
Hi, Chlorella is very easy to grow. In Mao's China people ued to grow it in bowls on their own urine - the only way to get essential vitamins etc during a time of famine! I suspect that you want a more sophisticated method! You just might be able to revive some cells from a dried Chlorella product, but I think it unlikely and definitely not the easiest way to go. For a starter Chlorella culture can I suggest Carolina biological supplies - www.carolina.com They are really reliable suppliers with many years of experience. Cost of a starter culture us$ 9.50. They also sell a manual on algal culture I have not read it, but at only us$4.50 it must be worth a look. They also sell algal culture medium, but this is very expensive especially if you want to grow lots of algae. What I have routinely used with Chlorella and other algae is a liquid garden fertilizer. I do not think that the make is critical, you just want to be sure that it contains micro-nutrients. The balance of nutrients is best in a green plant fetilizer rather than one especially for flowers, fruit or tomatoes . I tend to use brands which contain seaweed extract. You will need to experiment to discover the optimal amount to add, but a good starting point would be to add 1 ml per litre of culture. I am sure your culture would grow with this amount, but you might get better results with more or perhaps the same growth with less nutrients. You will need to experiment as it does depend on the fertilizer you are using and your exact culture conditions. Use as much light as possible - I am not a fan of grow bulbs - I think they are very expensive and you will get as good or better results with an ordinary cool white fluorescent tube. Use natural daylight from a window if possible - you may not even want additional artificial light. If using artificial lights have them on for at least 12 hours per day. Chlorella is perfectly happy in 24 hour/day light and the culture will grow faster. Temperature is not critical. Ideal is about 25'C (~77'F) but normal room temperature will be fine. You want to pump in as much air as possible - just to create maximum turbulence and mixing. I like to see a culture "boil". In a 'square' aquarium you will get dead spots in the corners where mixing is poor and cells accumulate. This is undesirable and can lead to collapse of the culture. For small cultures, I prefer to use 5 litre (~ 1 us gallon?) plastic water bottles as these are easier to mix well. Back to the aquarium. Ideally you want to have some loose fitting lid to reduce contamination - perhaps a sheet of glass and have your lights above ? A major issue is keeping your culture pure. To sterilise the tank, I would clean well then fill it with baby bottle sterilising fluid, leave overnight then rinse with sterile water or if not available distilled water or tapwater. It is important to rinse well. To sterilise the culture medium (= water + nutrients, but before you add the Chlorella!) is more difficult. For small volumes boil. For larger volumes bring to 70'C (~160 'F) and hold for 15-30 minutes to pasteurise. I think you should be able to get some sort of immersion heater that you could put directly into the aquarium to do this. If you can then you do not need to sterilise the tank separately. Really happy Chlorella will double its cell number perhaps twice per day. So if you start with say 10ml of starter, in theory you should have an equivalent 163 litres ( ~43 us gallons)of culture after 1 week !! Good Luck ! Brian
WOW. Thank you very much. I was not expecting such an extensive reply. I will check it all out. If it reproduces so quickly than I may just use a 2 liter bottle instead of an aquarium. Great info thanks again.
You are very welcome! Something I forgot to say and is important is that you will usually get better results if you gradually increase the culture volume. eg do not add 10ml starter culture straight into a 10 gallon aquarium, but perhaps 10ml to 1 pint then after a day or two add more medium to say 1 gallon, then after another 2 days make up to the full volume of 10 gallons. Good Luck..and let us know how you get on. Ciao Brian
