Algal Detection & Monitoring

The factors (physical, chemical and climatic) that lead to blue-green algal growth are complex and although most follow a predictable annual cycle, rapid algal growth can happen at any time. Continuous monitoring is key to early detection of harmful algal blooms. Blue-green algae can pose a serious threat to water quality, ecosystem stability, surface drinking water supplies, and public health through toxin production. Chelsea has worked with several water & process control companies to provide sensors for the early detection of algal growth. Our highly sensitive systems can monitor water supplies in real-time either for online applications and in situ measurements.

Products to choose from:

FastFlow: This new Fast Repetition Rate fluorometer has been designed to monitor in real-time the ‘health’ of algae and is ideally suited for toxicant detection and bloom prediction. It is typically used to monitor pre-treated water supplies in pumping stations.  FastFlow utilises the active chlorophyll a fluorescence from water-borne algae and provides a non-destructive and minimally intrusive method of probing oxygenic photosynthesis. It provides an immediate detection of a wide range of contaminants that attack the photosynthetic process.

FastOcean: The ultimate, multi-wavelength fast repetition rate fluorometer for in situ and in vivo studies of primary production. It is suitable for use in a wide range of applications from the assessment of primary production within the world's oceans to environmental monitoring within reservoirs and rivers.It is ideally suited for toxicant detection and bloom prediction. When combined with a FastAct it provides a highly flexible laboratory system for static and flow-through samples.

UniLux: Low cost miniature multi-wavelength fluorometer available in five versions to monitor one of chlorophyll a, phycoerythrin cyanobacteria, phycocyanin cyanobacteria, fluoroscein, rhodamine WT or turbidity. It is extremely sensitive and gives absolute values and can tell you the algal concentration down to 1 part per billion. It is ideally suited to detecting and monitoring algal growth in the water, marine and process control industries.

TriLux: This miniature, low cost versatile fluorometer has a successful record of detecting and monitoring algal growth in freshwater, estuarine and marine environments. All versions of TriLux come with a chlorophyll a channel as standard, two other channels can then be selected between turbidity and phycoerythrin cyanobacteria and phycocyanin cyanobacteria - pigments that are prevalent in many cyanobacteria based algae. Results can be used to make an assessment of the different classes of phytoplankton present.