Algae for the general public

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SantaMonica

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Oct 9, 2008
680
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Santa Monica, CA, USA
If anyone is familiar with the crowdfunding site Kickstarter.com, we are building a campaign there to reach the general non-reefing people to show them the benefits of algae. There are no product pics yet, but the description is there so let's see if anyone here has any suggestions for editing:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/santa-monica/1517121823?token=b5a68bdc
 
so......you'd essentially be buying a kit to grow seaweed in your home? And the only thing noticeable it does is act like an air freshener? Looks like maybe you can use the seaweed as food or ingredients once its grown?

Ive never been to Santa Monica, but I can only assume it smells like my Florida Beach. I dont see it very marketable to coastal areas, and the inland states, if you've never been to a beach, you don't know what it smells like. So in my mind, you wouldn't buy it, unless there was a way to smell it before hand, kinda like a scratch n sniff sticker.
I would focus more on the health benefits of seaweed than the smell. I personally don't notice the smell of the beach anymore, and it reads like thats the main reason to buy one. A fancy air freshener. I don't think the air cleaning benefits would be significant enough for anyone to notice, unless maybe you had a kiddie pool filled with it. Again, lots of health nuts out there, and id think far more than people that want a beach air freshner.

Just my thoughts on it coming from a coastal state. best of luck to you
 
Well, it's not a kit, but yes it's to grow seaweed on a desktop. Air freshener, yes, and you use the growth for other things if you want (these people would not have aquariums to get algae from).

The smell of a beach is part of a big category of "marine" scents that are perfumes and incense. And the option of a garden soil scent would appeal to inland people, who all probably spent time in a garden.

Health benefits, yes, but not the focus of this first campaign because of the additional rules and regulations involved. Scents are undefineable and without the rules. And the size is not important here, because we're not claiming X amount of benefit; only a small amount of benefit is needed. Or a smell that people want, which does not take much growth at all (especially for garden soil scent).
 
If there was a quiet version, I'd buy two, one for me and one for my grandmother, who loves the beach, especially the smell.
Imsobored152 said:
I dont see it very marketable to coastal areas, and the inland states, if you've never been to a beach, you don't know what it smells like. So in my mind, you wouldn't buy it, unless there was a way to smell it before hand, kinda like a scratch n sniff sticker.
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Just because you don't live close enough to the beach doesn't mean you don't know what it smells like.I live close enough to know and like the smell of the ocean whenever I get near it, but not close enough to smell it all the time.
SantaMonica said:
Air freshener, yes, and you use the growth for other things if you want (these people would not have aquariums to get algae from).
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This would be a big selling point. If you couldn't eat beans, no one wold have one growing in their kitchen, but you can, and people do. It doesn't matter how few beans it produces, as long as it looks nice and produces some. If you could see the algae inside, it would be another big plus.

SantaMonica said:
The smell of a beach is part of a big category of "marine" scents that are perfumes and incense. And the option of a garden soil scent would appeal to inland people, who all probably spent time in a garden.
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The garden smell does not sound like a plus - it is a complaint my mother has all summer whenever we bring root vegetables into the house from the garden. Also, if it smells like a "marine" air freshener rather than the beach, I'd pay to have it taken far away from me.
 
Glad you like it. The bubbling is a feature because the extra designing that would be needed to silence it would create much additional cost. Maybe a silent version later. However if adjustable air pumps are run very low, and when growth has filled in, you probably would not hear it if it were setting on a carpeted floor. The pumps are louder, and they can be set 6 feet away.

When you lift the lid, you can see the growth inside. It's right up at the top. It's bubbling in red light.

For smell, it's probably going to have a GAC attachment for the air output, for use when the smell is not at the stage that is desired. But some people do like the gardening smell, and they stay in their garden dirt often.

When you do get the beach scent, especially if you remove some green growth and squeeze out the water and put in on your desk in a holder, it is exactly like a beach.
 
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