[Bhuvanmakes] says that he has the simplest open source photobioreactor. Is it? Since it is the only photobioreactor we are aware of, we’ll assume that it is. According to the post, other designs are either difficult to recreate since they require PC boards, sensors, and significant coding.
This project uses no microcontroller, so it has no coding. It also has no sensors. The device is essentially an acrylic tube with an air pump and some LEDs.
The base is 3D printed and contains very limited electronics. In addition to the normal construction, apparently, the cylinder has to be very clean before you introduce the bioreactant.
Of course, you also need something to bioreact, if that’s even a real word. The biomass of choice in this case was Scenedesmus algae. While photobioreactors are used in commercial settings where you need to grow something that requires light, like algae, this one appears to mostly be for decorative purposes. Sort of an aquarium for algae. Then again, maybe someone has some use for this. If that’s you, let us know what your plans are in the comments.
We’ve seen a lantern repurposed into a bioreactor. It doesn’t really have the photo part, but we’ve seen a homebrew bioreactor for making penicillin.
That’s really interesting but alas the poopification of the internet has made finding the mineral and vitamin requirements for algae kind of difficult to find. Like I search for “nutritional needs of spiralina.” And I get a bunch of garbage about how spirulina is good for you. Super helpful…
The problem is with your search, not the internet. Use “spirulina sp. culture medium”. First link. Nutritional != nutrient instead of blaming enshittification of anything, learn about your topic.
Try the search term : nutritional growth requirements of spiralina
(Or spirulina)
Today I got one of those search results that had a little link under it that said “Doesn’t include x. Show only results for x?”
I only typed x. It was a single-word query. From whence did this result even come from? Is it just one of a quadrillion web pages on file, pulled at random? What relation did it have to the search?
Search has been garbage for years. The ‘AI’ chatbots have been much better for me lately, but obviously you have to double check their answers. Also, they will only be useful for a little while longer, as I suspect they soon will all be pushing ads just like search
Use perplexity for search. It was built to solve that
Fish shit.
This aquarium project is missing the point.
Doubt the light is bright enough to keep coral alive.
Brother in law is a marine biologist. He grew algae to feed to copepods, and fed the copepods to seahorses. Only thing I ever saw him feed the algae cultures was tiny slivers of ordinary supermarket multivitamins.
Add Brine Shrimp for endless entertainment.
A air diffuser for the fish hobbyist would drastically improve yield with the millions more tiny spheres of light providing the maximum lighting area for the biomass and extremely decreased absorption of light by the water instead.
Cody over at Cody’s lab did a bit on this a few years ago too, fun stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64cEmjtwRgw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEd5fXERMBc
(For those above looking at nutritional requirements)