More than 10,000 living diatom species are known, there are over 8,000 species of Algae, there are 1500 species of  Blue Green algae or Cyanobacteria, there are 6000 species of red algae or Rhodophyta . . . . the list goes on and on- ok, so identification is not as important as why is it growing, how it impacts my plant and how to get rid of it!!!

With Summer time here, and lots of plants, ornamental ponds, lakes and lagoons having difficulties with Algae control, we are going to put together a few pages on plants and their issues. Then we will put together the types of algae that can be found as an fyi, because in reality, most of the algae that are growing in your plant, regardless of species, need to be controlled and removed!

There are various different controls depending upon the type of system, the cause and the location of the algae, maintenance, weir brushed, sprayers, manual scraping, control of nutrients, biological products, chlorination,  etc.. See our troubleshooting guide for Algae problems.

Algae can cause numerous problems.  Algae can cause TSS problems in a system, can give false BOD readings, can clog pumps, cause short circuiting if build-up is on the weirs of a clarifier,