spirulina

[gai]

hello all,
1. how would you know if the spirulina culture did not make it or its already dead?

2. how to expand the culture properly?

looking forward

[iceagefarmer]

hello all,
1. how would you know if the spirulina culture did not make it or its already dead?

2. how to expand the culture properly?

looking forward

Hi Gai --

You will want to wait until the culture achieves a rich, deep green color. There are sticks you can use to get an exact measurement of just how opaque the solution is, but you'll also be able to tell that it looks quite saturated. At that point, you can double the solution, which will make it more translucent again -- and then keep the bubbles running and just wait until it again achieves the dark green.

What leads you to believe that it's already dead? Spirulina is pretty resilient and SOME of them might still be kicking in there, so if you restore conditions to what they need (sufficiently high pH and reasonable temperature), you should be able to jump start it.

Eager to hear how it's going -- send some pictures!

Warmly,
Christian

[gai]

hi ice!

What leads you to believe that it's already dead?

its turning into kinda yellowish.
its not getting darker.
there are green clumps on the side.no floaters on top
the pic is on its 11th day

i was wondering if the ratio between the medium and culture is right?
83 ml spirulina + less than 2liters medium for the starting culture
what is the ideal ratio between medium and culture?

re expansion:
is it ok to scoop some culture from the backup culture and dump it on the one im trying to propagate?

i read it doubles itself every 2days.can i just double the solution every 4days?

until then.

ps cant attached more than 2 pics here?

pic#2

[Andy F]

Algae Research Supply, look under Resources. They have some good help, and videos. Hope that helps.
https://algaeresearchsupply.com/collections/education

[iceagefarmer]

Sorry to be slow responding. Curious if you've had any luck!

What leads you to believe that it's already dead?

its turning into kinda yellowish.

Sounds like it missed the boat. How is the pH?

i was wondering if the ratio between the medium and culture is right?
83 ml spirulina + less than 2liters medium for the starting culture
what is the ideal ratio between medium and culture?

My latest recipe was : http://wiki.iceagefarmer.com/wiki/Spirulina_Medium

re expansion:
is it ok to scoop some culture from the backup culture and dump it on the one im trying to propagate?

Especially if you lost the culture in that medium, I'd start fresh, as you'd probably just lose it again. You'd only be able to recycle a small amount anyway, to match the size of your starter, so better off with a clean start.

i read it doubles itself every 2days.can i just double the solution every 4days?

Not exactly -- that would be ridiculously fast. The spirulina doubles every day or two depending on temperature and light (see graph on http://wiki.iceagefarmer.com/wiki/Spirulina ), but if you've doubled the volume of medium, can still take some time to grow to fill it. My grows took a week or so between doubling down.

Hope you are having some success!