Disclaimer

Educational information only, not professional advice

Everything on this site, including articles, guides, videos, code, and project documentation, is provided for general educational and informational purposes only. It reflects our own experiments and reading, and it is written to help you learn.

It is not professional, medical, nutritional, engineering, legal, or food-safety advice, and it is not a substitute for guidance from a qualified professional about your specific situation.

Living systems vary. Your strain, water, equipment, climate, and habits are not ours, so your conditions and results may differ from anything described here.

You grow and consume at your own risk

If you choose to cultivate Spirulina and to eat what you grow, you do so entirely at your own risk and on your own judgment.

You, not Orr Biologicals, are solely responsible for deciding whether anything you produce is safe to consume.

If you are ever unsure whether a culture is healthy, correctly identified, or safe, the answer is simple: do not eat it.

Food safety is your responsibility

Home food production carries real responsibilities. You are solely responsible for correctly identifying your strain, keeping your culture free of contamination, and recognizing the warning signs of a crash or an unwanted organism, such as a pH that falls unexpectedly alongside a foul smell.

Spirulina is grown in a highly alkaline medium containing salts such as sodium bicarbonate. You are responsible for harvesting on appropriate mesh and rinsing those alkaline salts off the biomass before any culinary use.

Fresh Spirulina paste is perishable. You are responsible for proper harvesting, rinsing, refrigeration, prompt use, and low-temperature drying, and for discarding anything that looks, smells, or tastes off. When in doubt, throw it out.

We cannot inspect your culture or your kitchen, and we accept no responsibility for anything you consume.

No medical or health claims

Nothing on this site is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition, and nothing here should be read as a promise of any health, nutritional, or therapeutic benefit.

We make no medical claims about Spirulina. Descriptions of its composition are general educational background, not health advice.

Consult a qualified physician or dietitian before adding any home-grown food to your diet, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, have a medical condition, take medication, or have allergies. Individual reactions vary.

Electrical, water, and equipment safety

MAIN and its associated hardware are do-it-yourself electronics that operate around water, pumps, heaters, and mains-adjacent power. Mixing electricity and water is inherently hazardous.

If you build, wire, or run any of this equipment, you are responsible for doing so safely and correctly: proper enclosures, grounding, residual-current or GFCI protection, appropriate cabling, and compliance with local electrical codes. If you are not confident, consult a qualified electrician.

You are responsible for supervising heaters and pumps, preventing overflow and spills, and keeping the physical emergency-stop within reach. Automation is an aid, not a babysitter.

MAIN and PhycoNet are experimental and provided as is

MAIN, its digital twin, and the PhycoNet federated-learning network are experimental, open-source, non-commercial projects under active development. They may contain bugs, make imperfect decisions, or fail.

The safety features, including deterministic hard limits, digital-twin checks, firmware clamps, and the physical e-stop, are designed to fail closed and to reduce risk, but they are not guaranteed and cannot make an inherently unsafe setup safe. The system only ever proposes actions; the final responsibility for your reactor is yours.

All software, hardware designs, documentation, and information are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Orr Biologicals and its operator accept no liability for any loss, damage, injury, illness, spoiled culture, equipment damage, or other outcome arising from use of this information, software, or hardware. You use it at your own risk.

About the operator

Orr Biologicals is an independent, non-commercial, educational initiative run by a private individual, who operates the project as a minor. It is not a company, a laboratory, a food producer, or a certified authority.

We share what we learn in the spirit of open science, that science should be open to everyone, rather than as vendors of a finished, warranted product.

Your responsibility to follow local laws

Rules covering home food production, food handling and sale, electrical work, and hobbyist equipment vary from place to place.

You are solely responsible for knowing and complying with all laws, codes, and regulations that apply where you live. Nothing here is permission or encouragement to do anything unlawful, and information on this site does not override your local rules.

Limitation of liability and acceptance

By using this site and acting on any information on it, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this disclaimer and that you assume full responsibility for your own actions, equipment, cultures, and consumption.

To the maximum extent allowed by law, Orr Biologicals and its operator are not liable to you or anyone else for any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential outcome connected to this project.

If any part of this disclaimer is found unenforceable, the remaining parts still apply.

Questions

If anything here is unclear, we would rather you ask than guess. Reach us at service@orrbiologicals.com. Grow curiously, and grow carefully.