I started following Cody when he was literally mining. Now he is making automatic algae farms. Seriously, you are my favorite minecrafter.

Him explaining with a straight face while showing green teeth got me laughing real hard.

I cant get over him eating the algae powder at 0:43 and then coughing up a green cloud right after. Hilarious. Keep up the great work though, Awesome content.

In a few years he's gonna discover actual farming and i love it.

The main problem with algae is the entire system can become infected and kill all the algae or poison you if you are consuming it. You might consider separating the algae generator into multiple discrete units to allow for direct comparisons to ensure safety and redundancy as well as protection from accidental contamination.

This is a super cool project. I'd really like to give it a try

I’d recommend having the air in/out connected to your mushroom growing area as they also use oxygen and produce carbon dioxide. The require oxygen to fruit!

Hey Cody, I just want to say thank you. I’m so glad you didn’t decide to leave UKposts. The wholesomeness you bring to people is something to never be understated and seeing all your cool experiments are a joy.

When Cody came into frame for the first time I thought he had a guest. It never ceases to amaze me how much a hair cut changes someone, and I'm a barber lol

I love how enthusiastic this man is about science, really makes this channel so interesting and fun to watch.

You should grow botryococcus! it is similar to chlorella, but the difference is that it doesn't make edible fats - it makes diesel fuel! it makes C34 hydrocarbons in its extracellular matrix, and that lets it float on water. It outproduces almost all other algae in terms of biofuels. I have been doing biology research on both of these algaes for the past couple years, so it's exciting to see someone else as enthusiastic as I've been!

The memory I had of you was during a rough patch years ago. It broke my heart. I’m so happy to see that you’re back up on your feet and you look healthy and bright! Keep going man!

Chemist here: I would recommend not to use vinyl or pvc for food usage. They can leetch phatalates. Expeacially the soft tubing is full of softeners. It is good for testing, but not for final product. Phatalates are known to be bioactive and harmful.

it's the green puff of algae when he coughs that does it for me haha

man I'm back to watch this video again!!! I'm inspired to start cultivating it myself and want to offer my observation, your temps began to fall sharply when your water began sucking all that air from outside into it which then looked like it ran to your reservoir, if you could build a cap with a small hole to act as a restriction to limit the amount of air introduced into the system and still easily remove it to add water, awesome project :D

I find this absolutely fascinating I'm going to see about starting to experiment with this and using the algae for biofuel to power a more economically sustainable coffee shop

I think my most favorite part was the paper of algae directed into the mouth, followed by a cough that expelled a green mist, followed by a choking/gagging sound, followed by GREEN teeth. I was laughing so hard after that that I don't remember how the rest of it went! Nice one, Cody! Oh, I'm guessing this isn't going to be on the list for steak substitutes? 😂

great to see you in such good spirits, Cody sounds like an incredibly interesting project! can't wait to see more

Last time I watched a Cody video, he looked exactly like the kind of prospector that would dig around in the mines he always used to make videos about. At the risk of sounding shallow, Cody has made immense progress on his appearance and looks fantastic. I almost didn't recognize him!

Cody, you're a legend. I also started watching you when you were doing mining, and the level of the stuff you're doing now is mind-boggling. Great stuff!

Cody's that one guy who put his points into every stat. Mining, chemistry, metallurgy, electronics, mechanics, woodcrafting, farming etc. Lets hope he's on our side 😳

Always a good day when Cody uploads

When I was studying microbiology we got to look round a couple of sewage treatment plants. They removed the sludge for processing in an anaerobic digester that provided methane to run the site generators. One site allowed the untreated waste water to run down a long wide slope to local stream. This was in the 1980s not sure if it's still allowed. Anyway the slope the water ran down was covered in reeds but also many tomato plants from seeds that had survived people's digestive systems. The site workers harvested the tomatoes. Given that they were irrigation was by sewage water I would have been concerned about bacteria and viruses, and would hope that the workers vaccinations against Diphtheria, Typhoid, Tetanus, Polio, Leptospirosis and Viral Hepatitis were kept up to date.

I would’ve never clicked on this vid without your positive opening/personality. Now I’m hooked

"If it's good enough for fish, it's good enough for me." Cody has a simple and humble air about him that is extremely charming.

This is awesome. I still have those glass slabs btw when you want to expand.

I love this so much. How did you learn to do this? You are literally that guy that could be placed almost anywhere, in any point, at time and survive. The mad scientist

You've come an incredibly long way brother. Keep it up!!!

It's been a minute since I've seen Cody with short hair. He looks like a different person. Cody. If you read this at any point I hope whatever prompted this change has set a positive spin on your life. I know you've had some rocky bits these past few years so again. I hope whatever made want to change up your look is a good thing. You look happier and I hope that happiness lasts!

Wow, when you jumped into frame i immediately thought, someone is looking fresh. Looking good Cody! haven't been on your channel for like 4 months or so. i'm liking the project, something i might have to use in my food science degree i'm starting now :D

5:25 Cody just teleporting into the room to tell you about how good algae is

You are genius Cody! I really love your ideas. Please, keep it up and comming!

One of the coolest project you've ever started Cody, along with the Chickenhole base.

I feel like you're going to want to be more careful about sealing the holes in your system - especially the algae tub. You do have bugs in your greenhouse, and if there's one thing I know about bugs, it's that they love to get into open water sources. Dead bugs aren't something you want floating around in a food source. Also some way to avoid any spores or microbes from creeping in through the air intake. Like with mushrooms, you're going to want the system to be sterile and sealed to avoid contamination. Might also want to look into ways to isolate the starter algae culture from any contaminants too.

I worked with diatoms in university and it's fascinating what kind of stuff you can get them to produce. In the future they could be grown in similar tanks as yours and become a replacement for yeast that doesn't need sugar

It's great idea man. Im building a pond on my property for similar reasons. Will grow algae, duckweed and fish. Carp fish last all winter and if you clear the water, algae can grow under the ice even in winter. As long as you stir and airate the water somehow. Using windmill and solarpanel should work most of the year. Collect some staple food before harsh winter tho as here where I live, wintertime has 24h darkness cycle. No light, no life. It's stagnated at least. For about 1 month it's total darkness, then it's doable again. So food for at least 1 month prior is essential. Unless you have land to hunt for gain or dig for food in tunnels under the frostline.

I love how Cody went from literally mining to larping as a mars explorer to building a fully automated algae growing system lol

This is arguably the absolute best channel on this platform. Even the worst of days get better when Cody uploads!

Absolutely love this. Great job Cody

I dont know how, but that was the most professional and stylish handling of heating a test tube ive ever seen

I've wanted to grow blue algea(spirena(sp)), it is just slightly better in food value, but more important, it grows in a high PH so little other life could ever invade the medium, making raising it to eat much safer. Still, best to view under a scope from time to time.

You look good Cody. A friend of mine many years ago was also hooked on algae. LOL

You can replace the bottles with lengths of that same tubing you used elsewhere. It's easier to build, more flexible, but more expensive. We created a setup similar in my old lab using large diameter tubing

I'm using an aquarium air pump to move air through. I haven't filtered the air coming in, but I'm keeping other contamination out by positive air displacement and my container is a 30 gallon poly barrel with a pair of aquarium grow lights strapped together and weighted down in the center

Ohhhh, so that's why my friend has burnt spoons in his room. He's making algae oil.

He’s looking super healthy, took a break on yt for about 4 months and wow does he look like he may be in a better place mentally etc! Love the content! Catch up for me

You can always just run the alge through longer sections of the tube. Clear PVC or the vinyl tube would work and so long as it flows back in the box you've got a perfect way to keep things moving and catch the sun. Plus making more just means adding more pipe.

If you haven't, already, you may want to have that solar panel angled to match the algae panel, that way if it snows, then the solar panel will be covered the same as the algae panel and not try to turn on the pump while it's still blacked out by snow. Having it straight up like that means that snow will never build up on it. It will also help to just make sure that in cases of partial overcast, that the solar panel will only click on when it's getting the same kind of exposure as the algae. You may also want to consider adding a thermal solar heat exchanger. If you do it right, then is can help to keep the system warm during the winter and cool during the summer.

Haven't watched Cody for a while, he's looking super healthy and happy. It's nice to see.

Oh wow it's been a couple months since I've watched Cody regularly. When did he get absolutely YOLKED??? Dude is built like a boulder now. That algae must be treating him right!

IM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS PROJECTS DEVELOPMENT!

I enjoyed this very much and excited to see where this goes. Would love to follow in your footsteps if this ends up being a great success. Which I believe it will.

It's always comforting to know in the event of an apocalypse, when I am turned into shoe leather. Cody will still be thriving in his chicken hole.

The "which I've kind of been planning on doing" at 19:39 made me chuckle. I admire your drive to try new things. You are an example for all scientists. I wish you the best.

Maybe you could try running the algae through Twinwall Polycarbonate Sheet? It's available in large panels. Not sure how practical eating the algae directly would be, but you could use it to feed shrimps, snails or as an addition to the diet of chickens.

Im amazed. Every time I check codys chennel, I learn 500 new things. Thank you Cody!!

nice to see you look energized and happy cody. the past year or two might've had some bumps and life wasn't all that nice to you sometimes, but it's always darkest before dawn and eternal happiness is not natural. i want you to remember all the people you have influenced for good and have changed their lives drastically (including me), it hurt to see you in sorrow and am sure me and an insurmountable amount of people out there would help you in time of need. you are the best person on this platform and i don't say that lightly, please keep on being passionate and being you

If these were set up vertically along the northern wall of a greenhouse, they'd be useful for doing double duty as a thermal stabilizer for the internal air temperature!

Love the enthusiasm as you suppress the gag reflex

2:09 Small correction: Plants don't pump water. It moves through capillary action and evapotranspiration. It is fairly passive energy-wise.

Never thought I would see Cody heating black tar heroin on a spoon.

Cody looks like a jock now but he still talks like the nerd we all know and love.

Very nice! You should have the insulated tank inside with a circulation unit that can be switched by valve to the outside. With grow lights and a solar system that can manage the system inside. You could have all the oxygen you need and enough for fuel.

nicely done! Many, many years ago, I did a science fair project that looked at algae production, using a photo-metric approach. easy to do, no spinning down the samples - just measuring turbidity changes. You might give that a try.

Hi Cody, Keeping ur water temp near ideal growing conditions (21C +-3C) is challenging and appears to be your determinant growth variable. Its a common issue with outdoor bioreactors. I'd suggest putting the tubes indoors and submerged in a clear thermally stable liquid (or just water) to maintain a relatively constant temp. I know that doesn't fit your theme. You could eventually use solar panels/cells/battery/LED grow lights to maintain 24hr growing and stable growing temps/conditions. Yes, that's pricy. With stable temps, You should be able to max-out your bio-reactor within 5 days. Please check your algae variety often, like daily, and have backup virgin species on hand to start new clean reactors as needed. Back in the 2000's, when I was looking at this (for biodiesel/coal flu gas treatment/food/cattle feed source, etc), foreign or 'local' algae would be take over the bioreactor within 90 days. We simply just don't have a filter capable of 100% contaminant prevention... maybe we do now, or you could invent one? Safety tip: The foreign algae can be toxic to humans/animals. It can kill you, or destroy your kidneys, liver, ect. Also, I strongly suggest that every part of your bioreactor that is exposed to algae (storage basin/tubes/hoses/fittings) be easy to access for cleaning. Because of the foreign Algae introductions, you can expect prolonged contamination issues. The predominant joke at the time was that anyone that could run a stable independent bioreactor for longer than 4 months would become a billionaire. I was inspired by a guy named Isaac Berzin out of MIT. His research papers are a great place to start for info on the topic. I think he ended up being funded to do a full scale project in South Africa or somewhere, I don't know him personally and it was along time ago. Any hoo, Looking good so far. I used T12 lightbulb covers from H.D. as a cheap tubes. However flexible clear PVC (UV stable) tubing's now the more common (used for product packaging) and dominant tubing material. I lost interest and stopped all this after a pear reviewed paper definitively showed all diesel fuel including biodiesel & its exhaust were carcinogenic. Hope that helps, Good luck :)

I'm glad to see you're still around, youtube would be a pretty boring place without you :) I know this past year was a tough one for you but you're looking much more healthy and happy lately, whatever you've been doing it's definitely working! Keep up the great work, Cody, and stay awesome! ❤️

It's amazing how resilient it is.

This is awesome, love your videos man! I have one suggestion, you could coat the perspex with a hydrophobic spray which would prevent water droplets from forming during the night/winter, this would prevent the screen from becoming coated in frost which could affect the amount of light being absorbed.

Cody is looking SVELT. Crazy how you’ve changed over the years, I remember the 480p days before even the lapel mic. Keep it going, my favorite channel.

You can use volume to your advantage here. Building a 10m2 panel 50 cm thick will be cheaper than building 20m2 at 25cm. Obviusly its not endless but in the ocean sunlight doesnt realy deminish untill like 50 meters. You can also add a mirror underneath to have the sun pass through the mix twice. I would also recomend a head exchanger both to cool the selution and to heat it if it gets too cold. If you collect enough heat of it you could heat a shower with it. Or atleast your greenhouses.

Cody glad to see you recycle plastic bottles and great idea, another solution is to drill a hole slightly smaller than the bottle screw neck in the bottom of the bottle then glue the screw neck and screw it into the bottom of the other bottle done this and no leaks it also creates eddy currents in the bottles. Also those plastic bottles works great in ceilings

Yes, this is awesome, so if the actual apocalypse happens, we will have this guy's videos saving us from growing algae off of the bottom of waste tanks, plus you could flavour it by using different kinds of surfaces for the algae to grow on. The really nifty part was explaining how it can be grown into oil or fuels, all you would need to do is increase the amounts you could make and process.

Cody, you look so healthy mentally and physically. I’m really happy to see you looking so well. I hope you’re feeling happier and healthier, as well 😊

You could also combine this with a shrimp farm since they have similar and simple requirements and eat algae directly

I think I might set something like this up on my roof. I don't have a lot of room to grow plants so I'm mostly growing mushrooms but it'd be good to add another source of nutrients into the mix.

Throw an aquarium heater in the cooler set at 17c. Inkbird sells a controller on Amazon that is pretty tough and could keep things warm. I know it’s not as sustainable or easy, but it may help in the winter months

Damn, Cody. You haven't looked this pumped in years. I told you we'd all still be here when you got back :) Awesome project!

I remember back in the 70s when this idea was first taking off (Prevention and Organic Farm and Garden magazines talked abut this back then, around 1974, I believe) and a friend and I tried growing and processing this algae that we then made muffins with and it was ok. As you said, not gourmet. But, edible. I later tried it in some borsht as the beets would over power the flavor of the algae and it worked nicely. Now that you have rekindled my thinking on this and the need for self sufficiencey, I will set up my system again. We used a waterfall runway to our fish pond and that produced a fair amount of algae. Since we were not planning on eating it raw but only in cooked foods, it did not bother us that it was fed fish waste. So, the algae grew very fast and very thick. Since the spill way was of hard wood, it clung to the wood and was easy to scrape off. Now, I will build several so when one is off to dry, the others are still going. Maximise my production and harvest ability.

People were putting mustard on watermelon not too long ago, I feel like if we all work together we can make Algae a food trend and pretty soon it will be seen as a gourmet

One thing I thought of for this to reduce cost and complexity is to get rid of the bottles and just use 2 acrylic panels with maybe some kind of plastic or metal spacers on the sides and have one inlet pour in the top and a slanted bottom towards one side with the outlet. If I get the chance, I might do something like this myself. It seems really fun!

I've been thinking about doing something similar in the future: living off of algae, but I've been running into some problems regarding hypervitaminosis. Especially with chlorella, living off of algae alone can actually be dangerous because the vitamin and mineral content in it is so high. Just the vitamin A content in chlorella, using conservative estimates, is ten times higher than the absolute maximum considered to be safe by most medical professionals (assuming 2000 calories worth of it per day). That's not even considering how much iron, zinc, and other vitamins are in it. The effects of this can be more severe than you might think, especially if you plan to take this much daily, so I would definitely talk to a dietician or substitute caloric intake with less nutrient-dense food or algae before actually moving on with this plan.

Wow man, you're looking so happy in this video, I know you've had some tough times the past few years but this is fantastic to see!

If you're looking for more palatable algae, both Japanese nori and Welsh laverbread are made from Pyropia tenera. Might be something that can be cultivated in a sealed environment.

man's had to restart and is doing better than most. love your content brotha

I'd love to see an algae cooking video some day. The first thing that comes to my mind would be combining it with flour, to make something like algae bread, for example. Maybe replace the spinach in green pasta with algae? Or put some algae in pesto, or use it as a base for a soup? Or just hot water + algae to get algae tea?

Growing up and watching Cody go through his life with such determination, fills me with great joy. Good to see you in good spirits.

I think that burrying the storage container underground would solve a lot of your temperature problems. It would cool things in the summer and warm things in the winter. Or even if you just had a buried heat exchanger that the water/algea mix would pass through before storage.

Stick the insulated bin in a larger one surrounded by compost mulch, the have it insulated in the ground itself. You could also have a solar battery charged as a back up to use when you need the heater, or maybe even to run grow lights when the sun is hiding. Also maybe supplemented with wind or human kinetic energy to keep the backup batteries charged while on standby...or maybe build a lean too green house around it too.

Rather than having tubes, I would suggest using two panes of glass (or acrylic, plexi, etc) sandwiched together with a bead of silicone around the edges, with an inlet and outlet port for the media to flow through. This way, the algae can spread out through the large surface area, fill it up to the top, and then outflow back into the tank. That would greatly reduce the amount of time and energy spent on building each panel.

Wow that algea going from the test-tube to the flaming oil on the spoon was such a great demonstration

A small fishtank heater could help keep that warm on the colder nights, or if there's multiple cloudy and cold days. Could even have it charge with the sun too if you got some spare solar cells and an old lead cell battery.. I'm sure the Algae would be more efficient at doing it's job when it's not always having to warm up every morning. Or as much.

I demand a continuation of this project

How it started: “wow he made nitroglycerin” how it’s going: “hmm yes Cody tell us more about the algae please”

In terms of processing the algae into fuel, I'm curious what a fractional distillation would produce. You'd want quite a lot of it to start so you can have long enough fractions to isolate. Since it hasn't had a chance to be processed with all the heat and pressure underground, it would likely be mostly smaller chains equivalent to Naphtha, Kerosene and Propane.

You're the man...The Algae man! Love your work

Ahh, the good old Walmart spoon. I bought some when I was in the states, and they're all I use till this day. Perfectly balanced and light spoons.

very interesting build. 19:00 i hope you manage to deal with that foundation damage, avoid water ingress.

Awesome project! Maybe you could try to give it a reflective backing so you effectively get more light in winter. Maybe a space blanket on a roll that can retract in case the algae gets to hot.

I did a project with alagee growing them in distilled pop glass bottles with a 12,000 lux grow light. I exposed them to uranium ore and centrifuge the pellet. I had alagee grow too.

That cough in the beginning after eating the algae, with seeing the actual dust come out of your mouth was hilarious