Algae Die-off and Chunky agar

Last week at STEM I started work on my agar plates but I found that some of my algae had stared to die off. After panicking for a moment, I remembered that I could refresh my culture with fresh nutrient-fortified solution. The Nannochloropsis culture looked great, but my Arthrospira water started looking brown. I also prepared salinated water for my isolation agar plates. I added 31.25g of Instant Ocean to 1L of DI water with 1 vial of Alga-Grow concentrate to make the liquid portion for my plates with 10.00g of plant tissue culture grade agar. On the package for Instant Ocean the recipe was for a gallon, so I converted it into g/L, but in hindsight, I should have just made the gallon and poured out a liter. As it heated, there appeared to be chunks of agar that wouldn't melt but I autoclaved it anyways. When it was done, the chunks still persisted so I tried to melt it on the hot plate/stirrer and subsequently burned it. That was pretty disappointing, so I prepared another liter of agar culture and put it into the fridge for this week.

Spirulina dying

Chunky agar