Talkin’ ’bout culture. Spirulina: Day 1

An interesting package arrived today. It was the Spirulina culture I’d ordered from Spirulina Grow Co. Pretty quick delivery too

I’ve wanted to grow and harvest our own Spirulina for ages. It’s high nutrient levels will be a huge boost to our diet. It has one other thing in its favour – as they grow, the algae absorb carbon dioxide from the air around them, making each setup a little bioreactor.

Spirulina is an algae (this one’s Arthrospira platensis), that thrives in very alkaline environments which are easy to replicate indoors at home. That makes it an important addition in these times when going out is fraught with risk.

Apparently, all you need to breed up a big batch of Spirulina is an aquarium, an air stone and pump, a light and a heater with thermostat. All of these things are available relatively cheaply in aquarium stores, charity shops, garage sales and online. The growing conditions make it almost impossible for any contaminating microbes to grow along with the good algae.

Today’s package consisted of 500 ml of live Spirulina culture, and nutrients in the form of 1 Kg of fast grow starter nutrient mix (part A). 50 ml of Fast grow liquid nutrient mix (part B). Apparently, that’ll breed up 50 litres of algae!

I’ll keep you posted on the culture’s development and even dedicate a page on this website to it once it gets going. Here’s a link directly to the package I bought in case you want to follow along.