Scenedesmus Dimorphus

The species of algae I want to use is called Scenedesmus Dimorphus. You can see a picture of it at:

http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/utex/algaeDetail.aspx?algaeID=3674

This is also the site I plan on ordering it from. S.D. has been observed to have a lipid content of 16-40% by dry weight, and 21-52% carbohydrate by dry weight. This lipid content is one of the highest of all known algae, and also a very high carbohydrate content. We might be eventually able to turn the leftover carbohydrate biomater into ethenol one day, but I'm not worried about that now.

S.D. is a freshwater algae, which I think is also good since you don't need to control for salinity. That's just one less variable we have to worry about. Also I think freshwater algae tend to have a high lipid consentration because they need more bouyancy.

I'm still not ready to order, even though I have all my chemicals. I've been renovating my basement, and we just finished all the construction, but I'm still cleaning up. When I have all of the solutions ready, then I'll order. I do not want the algae to die right after I get it.

The growth medium I'm going to start with was used in a Navy experiment from 1954. Here is a link to the summary of it:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=540499&blobtype=pdf

They were able to achieve a growth increase of 21,000 times of the course of 21 days. This was ofcourse in very controlled conditions, but hopefully we can hit something at least a quarter of that.