A Super Easy Trick You Can Do Right Now to Boost Spirulina Growth Using Carbon Dioxide

Last updated on June 10th, 2020

Just like plants, Spirulina also performs photosynthesis to produce oxygen and sugar to build upon. In addition to sunlight, it uses carbon dioxide which is dissolved in the water. If Spirulina production is going slow, it may need a little carbon boost. In this article I will walk you through a very easy process by Dr. Cath from Spirulina Academy, which can easily accelerate spirulina’s growth using simple and widely available food-grade ingredients, making your spirulina stronger and healthier.

In order to provide spirulina with all the nutrients it needs for its photosynthesis, we need to resemble the natural environment as much as possible, but how can we resemble a volcanic lake in an artificial environment like a pond or an aquarium?

One quick and easy way is to enrich your Spirulina with carbon dioxide, which can easily be done using simple and widely available food-grade ingredients.

This method is especially useful if your spirulina has many straight strands and not enough curly ones. The stimulation caused by the movement in the water will reveal your curly strands to sunlight and help them multiply. Joined with the amazing properties that carbon dioxide adds to the mix, this method is the perfect solution for when your spirulina seems to be growing slowly and needs some tender loving care.

What you will need is:

• A large bottle of about 3 to 5 liters
• 50 grams of sugar
• 20 grams of dried yeast
• Half a litre of hot, but not boiled water
• 2 air tubes of about 1 meter
• A 3 ways air tube connector
• An air pump

To boost carbon dioxide in the water, here’s what you need to do:

• Insert the yeast, sugar and warm water into the bottle.

• Close the cap and shake the bottle well to mix the ingredients together.
• Drill a small hole at the center of the cap.

• Connect the 2 air tubes with the air tube connector.
• Insert the third end of the air tube connector into the cap hole.

• Attach one end of the air tube to your air pump, and place the other one inside your tank.
• Finally, turn on your air pump and see how your spirulina is injected with live carbon dioxide.
• Be sure to turn your new Carbon booster at night, as Spirulina will only need it during sunlight.
• This mixture will last for about a week, after which you can replace the bottle content with fresh ingredients.

Results and Conclusions

Having done this process several times now, we have come to a few main conclusions:

• Indeed inducing Spirulina with Carbon dioxide can be a major boost for its growth.
• Its very important to change the bottle content or else, other gases could be injected unintentionally, which could potentially damage the quality of your Spirulina.
• The most effective way to be doing this process is in one week cycles: Connect the bottle to the pump for one week, then give it a break for another week, then repeat the process again. From our experience, its seems like a good way of controlling the amount of carbon in the water and preventing excess.

Have you tried this process? Let us know how it went in the comments below!