How would you find and cultivate specific forms of algae?

Question

Knowing how simple and efficient it is to grow algae, I started wondering how a person would specifically isolate and grow different strands of algae. Say I walk to the closest body of water and took a sample of water. How would I prepare it so that I only got a specific strain of algae, say a green algae?

Answer 1

So, if you got a random water sample from a nearby pond, I think the first step would be to assess which forms of green algae are in the sample. After you've identified the types of algae, you can try using a micropipette to extract individuals from that sample and grow them in an isolated tank or container with distilled water until you have a sufficient population. Depending on which type of green algae you've collected and isolated, they could have more specific requirements for growth and reproduction (you can think of algae like diatoms that require silica, a limited resource in the water column, in order to make more of their tests). Hope this helps!