ok sent u a mail.
maybe i try letting the spirulina adapt to freshwater first.
btw when u add bicarbonate, will your water be chalky?

Hi all.
So I got my spirulina sample from Savvypro today. The fluid is a little pale with lots of small green algae clumps floating in. If the solution is put to rest, most o these clumps settle on the bottom of the bottle. Is that ok?
Made some microscope shots using the fluid on top of the clumped mass hoping to see some unclumped free floating spirulina coil. Some of the algae are covered with something, might be bacteria? or maybe small mineral crystals? I am no expert. Some are clean. There are also very few straight ones. see for yourself:

Yep it's ok, just give the bottle a good shake. The Spirulina will start to clump together and float to the top, to form a matt when it gets lot of light. The sample you received is some time off before it will form a floating mat which covers the surface. Unlike the sample I posted above with the booster (did the booster vial arrive ok).

The grayish/brow fluff is undissolved chems. My last medium batch resulted in the fluff being formed. I first thought it was bacteria (it couldn't be as I was making the medium and the fluff was forming right before my eyes). But as time goes by less ans less is visible.

The Spirulina settles first, so you can remove the water while the fluff is still floating. If you have a syringe and some air pipe, suck out the water with the fluff and replace it with new medium. You may want to check the fluff water, under the microscope before chucking it as there could still be some algae in the water. You could start of backup batch with that.



Can you get video off of your microscope?

Thanks for the answers
Yes, I can also make a video on my microscope

Have you been able to get a closeup of the fluff?

There is nothing to see much, just some small and hard to focuss dots, but I saw als several latger crystals. You said that as time goes, these become less and less visible, that's probably because spiruline uses it up till the concentration is so small that everything is dissolved in the water. Lover temperatures also make high concentration chemicals to crystalize, that is why you can dissolve more salt in hot water than you can in cold.
BTW, the booster vial came ok, nothing broken.

I normally heat up the mediums in their jars, in a water bath, but forgot to do it last time.

I forgot to ask, how was the package, was it opened, was any of the tape cut?

The package was ok, nothing seemed to be opened.
Thank you!

Thought this was right place to ask.

Does a mermaid wear an algebra?

haha thats funny. yes you are in the right place. i think they dont wear. that will be too fortunate for the algae. haha

I received a new binocular microscope on Saturday. Haven't used the halogen light that comes with it, as I don't want to cook my specimens. So I converted it to use an LED, without any alterations. I haven't been able to use it fully as the set of 15x eye pieces were missing on arrival. I've contacted the seller and should have them soon.

The image quality is unbelievable, the things I have seen so far using it, is amazing - all recorded, as I've been able to connect up a HD camera to one of the eye pieces.

I managed to observe a phenomena (with the Spirulina and it’s medium), that I’m currently running a test on (the quick test worked). If the second part of the test works in a week, as I hope. Then it may answer some questions about how Spirulina, has been able to survive for so long (billions of years).


@Jetijs
What is the magnification you use on the pictures you attached?

Currently I can only really observe the Spirulina at 40x and 100x (at the moment), if I use the 40x objective (which results in 400x). I can barely see anything, except some tiny crystals and what I think is the outline of a Spirulina cell. I can’t tell for sure as it’s so faint and I don’t have the 15x eye pieces yet. I may get a 20x eye piece to give me 200x capability, so that I don’t have such a large jump from 100x to 150x then 400x.

Attached Images

newscope.jpg (46.2 KB, 22 views)

@savvypro,
Good for you, nice microscope. Please post pics when you are able.
Thanks & Regards, Gene

savvypro,
I used 100x magnification, but I have also a digital zoom on the display and it was also used so I can't tell you the correct magnification. At 400x I can't get one healthy spirulina cell in the display, it is too big, but I can see detailed features.
The spirulina sample you sent me is still progressing very slowly, I increased the volume to about 0.5L and the bubbler is used non stop. I use LEDs 12h a day. So it will probably be another few weeks till the water is healthy green.

If anyone needs any "Parafilm M Laboratory Film”. Send me a PM.

I managed to get 6 boxes of 4 inch wide Parafilm at a bargain price.

What is that? What do you use it for?

It's a Paraffin wax film that can be used to seal the openings of things (everything from test tubes, petri dishes, jars etc.). But still allow gas exchange without allowing foreign organisms to pass through as well.

Do a search on youtube, you'll get the idea.

I've been using cling film on some of the Spirulina flasks, but it's not ideal and breaks easily. The parafilm can stretch by upto 200%. And can supposedly self seal - we'll see (never used it before today)

Plus the discarded bits can be used to make fuel

Been some time since I've posted in this thread...

I've got some interesting developments to share. About a month or so ago I spent an afternoon doing some sample isolation work. Basically, trying to isolate some Spirulina spiral cells so as to end up with a pure spiral sample - that was the goal.

One of the things that I noticed when trying to separate the spirals: was that the idea that spirals float better than straight non spiral cells - is complete nonsense. During the isolation work, I would only take samples from jars which had been sitting for half a day. With the only movement being that which the Spirulina cells do naturally, and with the help of gravity. The reason for doing this, was supposedly: that the straight non spiral cells would sink to the bottom of the sample container, while the spiral cells would still be floating. That was the theory.

The samples I would collect with an inoculation loop, from the surface (within the top 1 inch or so of the sample jars), would all contain straight non spiral Spirulina cells and spiral Spirulina cells. This is not a one off event, something I just noticed when I was doing the isolation work. It is something that I have observed happening every time I have taken a sample to view under a microscope. Be it from jars that have been sitting without movement for hours or those where the samples are in motion.

New rule, based on my observations and experiments: spiral and non spiral Spirulina cells, have the same buoyancy.


Back to the isolation work...

The best way to isolate some Spirulina spiral cells is not as follows:

If you place a drop onto a glass slide (using an inoculation loop) and try to isolate an individual cell: you'll find it is damn near impossible. The moment you break the surface tension of the drop with a syringe tip to suck up the single cell, you cause a change in the flow of the medium, moving all the cells around.

Your only hope is to get lucky. After a couple of hours (actual time by the clock, but felt more like 5), of frustration - I did get lucky. So far the result from that lucky sample, looks to be all spiral Spirulina cells. Be warned: if you don't have the patience or the ability to persevere through self imposed mental stress - the frustration could make you flip.

Save yourself the hassle and do the following:

After that I went onto a drop method. Basically what you do is: get a tiny sample using a inoculation loop, dilute it in a sample of medium (say half a mil or a mil of new medium).

Using a syringe, suck up the dilute solution and then squeeze out a number of drops, onto the lid of a petri dish (or some other clean flat see thru surface you can use). Stick that petri dish lid under a microscope and then look at each drop, looking for the best sample that you want to isolate. Once you have found it or if you are lucky, and have found a number of them.

Using a clean syringe or pipette, suck up the drops which contain the sample(s) you want, place them into test tubes or sample bottles with a small sample of new medium (a mil or two - no more). Then wait for the samples to multiply.

My description of the process sounds more complicated than it actually is, trust me on this. You’ll have a far greater chance of getting lucky in the first 5 minutes, than I did in 2 hours using the other method.

Based on the results so far, I have isolated a couple of different types of Spirulina spiral cells. That were all from the same sample I received from UTEX. This was not my intention, I was just looking to separate the spiral cells from the non spiral cells, I was not looking for different spiral types. The only other explanation for the different spirals, is that the Spirulina cells that I isolated, have evolved/changed/adapted to their environment.

Once I have enough volume of the new samples, I'll take some pictures of the different cell types.

When I was doing the isolation work, it hit me that one could use the same method to recover from a failing sample.

I have a number of samples which I have been neglecting for this very purpose.
So stay tuned...

Hi.
My sample that you sent me is now multiplied so much that I need to use 40 liter bioreactor. And it seems to grow faster and faster. Will take some samples under microscope to see which types of spirulina are dominant.
Thanks,
Jetijs

Hi
It's fascinating to read through this thread and see how your work has evolved. Thank you for sharing the experience. I've been searching for ways to get live Spirulina and as you say previously it seems that UTEX is just about the only one that ships to Europe. Strange. But I wanted to ask if its possible to get live Spirulina sent if I cover all the costs?
All the best,
Einar

Depends where in Europe you are located. I can't promise anything, but ask me again in September. I may be willing to ship a sample.

I'm in Iceland.

I am very interested in your thread and would love to be a part of it, thanks to you I have seen the AlgaeLabs website and done some research as I would really like to make my own algae food and maybe a business! I am wondering about AlgaeLabs' culture, do they tell you the duplication rate and protein %? Because I found much more expensive strains hereSUPER SPIRULINA CULTURE - SOLEY BIOTECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE and I thought about first understanding how to cultivate the $60 AlgaeLabs strain and work towards a fast strain like the one in the link I provided that needs 8 hours... at only $2,800 a 100ml vial! Yikes, haha it must be worth it!

I also notice that some people use florescent lights, this I guess would be the blue light that you mention makes the spirulina bigger?
Algae Photobioreactor Basics - YouTube
The American Algae System - YouTube

This may be of interest:

Electrostatic Treatment of Plant and Animal Matter

http://www.quantum-seeds.com/Electrostatic Treatment.pdf

Page 18:

6. EXAMPLE: Influence of the electrostatic field on stress behavior

6.1 Retarded Start of Senescence for Green Algae Green algae cultures obtained by smear on algae culture medium in Petri dishes are developed at insufficient illumination (133 μwatt/cm2). Both at a field strength of 1,500 V/cm and at 750 V/cm the cultures outlive comparative material without electrostatic field. The latter already after 1 month shows a distinct deficiency appearance and is after 2 month brown. In the same period of time cultures cultivated in the electrostatic field develop normally.

6.2 Increased Salt Resistance of Ubiquitous Bacteria An arbitrary mixture of ubiquitous bacteria from a soil sample is cultivated in Petri dishes for 5 days in water at room temperature. From this suspension each 1 ml is inoculated into 6 Petri dishes which each contain 15 ml of a diluted seawater medium (see Table 4; dilution 1:2, 1:4, 1:8). 3 dishes are subjected to an electrostatic field of 1,500 V/cm, the remaining serve as control. After 7 days the dishes in the electrostatic field show a distinct increase of the bacteria population, whereas the control dishes do not show any development. The electrostatic field aids in overcoming the salt stress.

In a second adaptation step bacteria from the culture grown at a dilution of 1:2 in the electrostatic field are removed. These serve as starting material for inoculation onto a further Petri dish, which now contains the culture medium according to Table 4. 1 ml of this suspension is transferred into 15 ml seawater medium and the Petri dish again subjected to an electrostatic field of 1,500 V/cm. Within 3 weeks the culture develops completely and reaches maximum equilibrium population. In this manner a ubiquitous bacteria mixture is adapted from sweet water to a saturated salt solution.

IndianaBoys