Can algae attach itself to suspended clay? I seem to remember reading that but I can't find it now. The reason I ask is, my water clarity is very low (6-8 inch Secchi reading).
I thought it was just a heavy plankton bloom, but now it seems it's more than that.
To test it i brought a sample up to the house in a container, and added a little bleach.
The bleach cleared the green coloration, but i was still unable to clearly see the bottom of the container. The color turned to a yellowish color which leads me to believe it was suspended sediment of some sort. Could it be zooplankton?
I appreciate any help.
Tim

Certain species of algae will attach to sand grains (epipsammic), however there are no published records that I know of for algae attaching to clay particles. Most coloidal clay particles are smaller than most algae cells, thus it would be difficult for the algal cell to adhere to a particle smaller than themselves. I highly doubt that the yellowish color is due to any type of zooplankton. I'm not sure how bleach will differenciate between suspended clays/sediment and living organisms.

Thanks Bill, I should have said sediment instead of clay, as I realized it wasn't going to be clay while I was writing and changed the title but not the question. With the lack of alum or gypsum to test for inorganic suspension, I thought I would try to rule out organics with the bleach, I've seen a couple of posts here on using this method.

What I'm seeing is a green sediment falling on the bottom near the shore, and on some new structure I put in for fatheads. I don't remember seeing it before, and it seems heavier than I would think a algae bloom alone would be. Hope that makes sense.

Certain algae species esp larger ones will fairly rapidly settle out if they lose the features that give them bouyancy.