Evaluation of growth of Chlorella ellipsoidea in different culture media

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the growth of Chlorella ellipsoidea in three different media viz,. medium I (pulse bran), medium II (soil extract) and medium III (inorganic) under the natural environmental conditions. The alga, C. ellipsoidea, reached maximum cell density of 56.32 × 10 6 cells ml -1 in 10 days in medium I (pulse bran), maximum cell density of 102.99 × 10 6 cells ml -1 in 11 days in medium II (soil extract) and maximum cell density of 64.23 × 10 6 cells ml -1 in 12 days in medium III (inorganic medium). The ranges of water temperature, air temperature and light intensity were 22 to 32ºC, 22 to 34ºC and 2.11 to 4.31 (× 10 3 ) lux, respectively during the culture period. The average sunshine period was 7.65 ± 1.57 hours. Total alkalinity, free CO2, pH, NO3-N, PO4-P of algal culture medium I, medium II and medium III were 220, 200 and 150 mg L -1 ; 26, 9 and 19 mg L -1 ; 7.9, 7.6 and 7.5; 45, 45 and 133.33 mg L -1 ; 10.9, 15.1 and 37.06 mg L -1 , respectively. Cell densities of cultures of C. ellipsoidea under three treatments I, II and III, it can be concluded that cell densities under 3 treatments are significantly different (F=39.78) and treatment II (soil extract medium) is the best for algal (C. ellipsoidea) culture among three treatments.