Bob and others,

Being a true greenhorn, I'm in no position to help with the ID of the algae but Kelly's post opened up the crypt to a long ago college memory that I thought I'd post. In one of my cartography classes, with the subject of the day "focusing" on cameras, the professor got off on a tangent related to an old college stunt he and a buddy pulled in class one day. He stated that the chemicals involved with photo developing displace air bubbles. For laughs, they bought a tub, some photo developer and a duck to class one day. After filling the tub with the photo juice, they set the duck in the tub. To everyones delight (minus the duck), the duck sank up to its neck.

I'm sure its not a good practice to spray algae mats with photo developer to get it to sink but if we have some photo buffs out there who would like to try this, I'd be interested in the results. At least it would lend credence to the duck story.

Russ