Growing Spirulina

It all starts with a live Spirulina culture. It’s like you need a seed or a cutting to grow a tree. In this case, you need a quantity of Spirulina cells to start your culture. They will be suspended in a nutrient growth media. You only need a relatively small amount to get started. Under the right conditions, the cells rapidly divide so you can expand the volume of your culture at a geometric rate.

When buying a culture, there are a few things to be aware of here:

Start with a Pure Culture

Visit our shop page to order pure live Spirulina culture securely with confidence.

Get a Reasonable Amount to start with. You could start with just a few ml of culture and if you care for it, you can end up with a swimming pool full. However, small amounts are vulnerable. It is better to start with a minimum of 50ml or more. The more, the better.

Spirulina Grow Co is your trusted local source. Whilst you still can buy live spirulina cultures from reputable sources overseas, you do run the risk of it dying in transit or being confiscated by customs. Remember, it’s illegal to import live organisms without a material transfer agreement, import licences and customs clearances. It’s safer to buy a live culture from your home country.

Information and Support

We offer detailed instructions and good after-sales support. Growing Spirulina is really easy, but like anything, there are a few tricks. We are generous with information and want you to succeed.

Aquarium tanks are perfect because it has transparent sides and won’t breakdown in the sun. Clear plastic storage containers, large glass jars, even a little swimming pool can be utilised. As long as the vessel allows ample light to penetrate the culture, you should be fine.

A 60L aquarium will provide ample Spirulina to supplement the diet of 2 people.

Depending on how much Spirulina is demanded, you can easily expand your farm size by adding more bioreactors (Spirulina tanks/containers). Other pieces of easy to obtain equipment include an aquarium air pump, a thermometer, a pH pen and an aquarium heater.

Spirulina is a robust organism that has survived for over 3.6 billion years. If you get a few basic elements right, you will have a thriving culture that will keep you with an endless supply of fresh, live, raw Spirulina.
Here are some of the most important elements:

Light

Because Spirulina is photosynthetic, it needs light to grow and thrive – just like a tree. Sunlight is best because it carries a lot more energy than even the strongest light globe and is composed of the correct light frequencies for Spirulina. Your Spirulina farm will do best when placed in a sunny location.

Water

Water quality is important because Spirulina will absorb whatever is in its environment. This means that it will accumulate heavy metals and other toxins if they are present in the water. Further, certain elements can kill Spirulina at critical concentrations, chlorine and copper for example. Since tap water is usually chlorinated, you cannot use tap water without removing the chlorine first.

Nutrients

The basics: alkalized water – high pH.
A source of carbon (atmospheric CO2 and inorganic salts).
A source of fixed nitrogen that’s soluble in water and thus available to the reproducing Spirulina.
A source of key nutrients: iron, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur calcium, chlorine and magnesium.
A source of trace elements – these are essential nutrients needed only in extremely small quantities – such as boron, cobalt, manganese, zinc and copper.
There are various nutrient formulas used to start of and maintain a Spirulina culture. You can buy ready-made mixes or make your own from relatively easy to obtain materials offered in the marketplace.

Temperature Control

Regulating the temperature of your culture is important. You don’t want the temperature falling below 2ºC or rising above 42ºC. The culture will start to grow at temperatures over 15ºC and you will get optimal growth at temperatures between 30 – 37ºC.

Keep the Culture Moving

Mixing the culture in the bioreactor forces Spirulina filaments to cycle to the surface, or near its transparent walls, for a short while so they can photosynthesize (turn light energy and CO2 into sugar). Mixing can be achieved by bubbling air through the culture. The bubbles also facilitated gas exchange with the air.

Monitor pH

The pH is a measure of acidity or alkalinity of a solution. What is unique about Spirulina is that it grows and thrives under very alkaline conditions; above pH 9. Organisms that could be harmful to the Spirulina, or you, cannot grow above pH 9.5. That’s why you only harvest once the pH reaches 10 or above. You can measure the pH with an electronic pH meter or litmus paper.

Harvesting Spirulina is easy. All you do is sieve the culture through a fine screen printing mesh. You will be left with a thick paste. You then wash the paste in clean water and sieve it again. That’s it.

Once harvested, there are heaps of ways you can use fresh Spirulina! From beauty products to delicious food. The thing is, fresh, raw Spirulina has a very mild flavour and smell so it is highly versatile – you can eat it straight or add it as an ingrediant to a drink or your cooking – check out the food blog pages.