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Spirulina farming

141 bytes added, 07:48, 8 June 2010
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* Air compressor, such as aquarium ones.
[[Image:harvesting_pressing_and_drying_spirulinaharvesting_spirulina.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Harvesting, pressing and drying harvestingspirulina]][[Image:extruded_spirulina.jpg|thumb|right|150px|extruded spirulinalaid out to dry]]
A concentrated spirulina culture is then used to seed the pond containing culture medium. This can be obtained from culture floating on an existing pond, or recently harvested. This is mixed into the culture medium and allowed to grow. It should be regularly agitated using an electric pump or by stirring manually. The temperature, pH and concentration of algae should be monitored. Once the concentration increases to about 0.5g/L (use a Secchi disk to measure) it must be harvested. This can be done by simply filtering it through a cloth to obtain a “biomass” of about 10% dry matter per litre. The biomass obtained is then pressed in a cloth to produce a kind of cake. The culture medium can then be reused, by adding any of the ingredients which were used up by the Spirulina.
They pack the Spirulina in dry form of 2 gram sachets and sold to two local NGOs. The Spirulina is also combined with millet, jaggery, and sesame to produce “chikki” a type of energy bar to feed 2000 children per day from slums in the neighborhood. At this scale of production, the facility is extremely efficient, and produces at a cost of 0.01 euro per child per day. They currently do not sell in the open market, as this requires more management and marketing skills, however this is being worked on.
 
[[Image:distributing_spirulina_chikkies.jpg|thumb|right|150px|distributing spirulina chikkies]]
==Manuals==
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