Which Culture Should I Grow? |
We like reliable, fast-growing strains that are not fickle or invasive (none of our strains are invasive). A few of our favorites are listed below. Note that our Algae Beads kit is a good alternative to growing free-living cultures, and that our Brainy Brinys kit is an excellent model predator-prey system.
One of our favorite freshwater strains is Spirulina, a blue green extremophilic algae that prefers high pH (around pH 10). This pH is advantageous as it limits competition from other algae, freeing you from worrying about contamination. They are giants in the microbe world, allowing you to harvest them with a simple mesh screen. They are non-toxic and consumed around the world for their protein and antioxidant properties. Our Spirulina Culture Kit is linked here. Chlorella is also a hardy freshwater species, one which we use to make our Algae Beads. Our Chlorella Culture Kit is linked here.
For seawater-based projects, we recommend Nannochloropsis. It is a small and hardy plankter (2 um) that grows very quickly and responds to changes in salinity, nutrients, and toxins with corresponding changes in biomass. Our Nannochloropsis Culture Kit is linked here.
As mentioned above, our Brainy Briny kit is an excellent alternative to algae-only culturing and adds an additional layer of excitement to scientific discovery! It contains feedstock algal cultures as well as brine shrimp predators, which when combined make for a simple and easy predator-prey model system.
Favorites: Spirulina, Nannochloropsis, and Chlorella vulgaris.
You should consider your research goal. Choose a strain that best emulates your system (freshwater or seawater, diatom or dinoflagellate, green or blue-green). The most important thing is that you want to test your hypothesis, not test if you CAN grow algae. So choose a strain that is not going to be troublesome to grow, and that allows you to draw conclusions applicable to your hypothesis. Browse our Organisms page to identify the strain that works best for you!
People eat Spirulina, Chlorella vulgaris, and Chlorella pyrenoidosa. However, we recommend buying algae to eat that is packaged for that purpose. We at ARS offer no guarantee, warranty, or prediction of safety if algae we sell is consumed by humans or animals. While these strains are routinely eaten, quality control systems are in place to make sure that they are safe. Our strains are clean and reliable, but once it leaves our doors, all bets are off. Oh, and please don’t call us and ask how much urine you should use to culture spirulina, because we've been asked before and the answer is none.
Favorites: Anabaena, Nannochloropsis, spirulina, dinoflagellates, Chlorella
To study algae blooms, you need an algae that will reliably grow. All the strains above will do that well. Anabaena, is a blue-green algae and is commonly found in algae blooms in lakes. Chlorella is another freshwater strain, but it is less commonly found as a problem, but it grows very well. Dinoflagellates, Prorocentrum for instance are marine strains, and dinos are commonly part of nearshore blooms. Most strains can be used to model a bloom, pick it and justify using it in your paper by saying that it is easy to grow and from an appropriate group of algae.
What Kind of Container Should I Use? |
Favorites: Centrifuge tubes (50mL), Beaker Bags (500mL), Empty water bottles, Tissue Culture Flasks (50, 250, 600mL)
For experiments we have four recommendations, largely based off of culture volume
Do I Need a Heater? |
Do I Need a Light? |
Do I Need Salts and Nutrients? |
Yes!!! You will need BOTH salts and nutrients to grow the algae!!!
Consider the salts as the physical environment for the cultures. Even freshwater cultures need some salts. Salts generally include the ions: Chloride, Sodium, Magnesium, Sulphate, Calcium and Potassium. We make our culture salts with pH buffers to make the culture more resistant to swings in pH (photosynthesis pulls CO2 out of the water and drives the pH up- story).
Most folks are familiar with fertilizer for their gardens, this is very similar, but formulated for algae, not terrestrial plants. Our nutrients are custom blended and usable in freshwater and seawater cultures.
Examples of a setup? |