Red Sea Algae

Today I recieved some Red Sea watersamples, which hopefully they contain some tropical algae. The samples will be incubated and tested.

The Red Sea is a long inlet between Asia and Africa. It’s named after seasonal blooms of the red-coloured cyanobacteria Trichodesmium erythraeum near the water’s surface.

Since my sister went diving in the Red Sea last week (google maps), I asked her to bring some samples to Belgium. I gave her two 50 ml falcon tubes. Yesterday, two tubes of water were lying on my desk. A note was lying on top: “Hello brother!! Here you have the 2 samples from water of the Red Sea. Next you’d better get them yourself because it’s really great out there!! Greetings, Ruth”. Thanks sis!

I will incubate half of the tubes. The other half will be stored at -80°C. Soon, I hope to see some red algae blooms which will be used in anaerobic digestors for gas production.

Red Sea algal bloom (source)

Update (april 17th ‘08): I incubated the samples in a small beaker with seawater. After 3 days I saw some red algal dots on the bottom of the beaker. I used a syringe to take some samples of these algae, which were incubated in 4 falcon tubes and incubated them. Currently, no growth is visible. When no red color will be present within a week, I will aerate the tubes to improve the algal growth.

Update (april 21th ‘08): The samples have been aerated during the past 2 days and some red algal growth is beginning to show.

Update (april 22th ‘08): 5 ml of the algae were inoculated in an aerated 2 liter vessel. An algal bloom should be present in 2-4 weeks.

Update (april 26th ‘08): small yellow-brownish grains are beginning to develop.

Update (may 31th ‘08): we did not observe algal blooms yet. This is probably due to the fact that the production parameters (light, temperature, salinity, day/night cycle, nutrients, aeration) were different than in natural conditions.