Harmful algal blooms are dangerous precisely because they're often undetected until they're visible — and by then, water quality, public health, and recreation are already at risk. The AlgaeTracker solves the problem of undetected harmful algal blooms by providing early, real-time warnings — helping subscribers protect water quality, public health, and recreation before blooms become visible or dangerous. Spot checks and occasional site visits can't catch a bloom forming between visits, and continuous 24/7 monitoring eliminates those surveillance gaps while reducing sampling costs by up to 80% and helping prevent expensive remediation.

For an Lake Pulse subscriber, that means protecting your shoreline and your communities recreation with continuous data measured in your lake rather than inferred after the fact. And if you're serious about producing more data on your lake to reach health and safety goals, a buoy is the natural next step beyond weather — pairing in-water bloom detection with the meteorological drivers (solar light, rainfall, wind) that the Weather Station tracks, so you're watching both the cause and the effect.

Each AlgaeTracker monitors six essential water-quality parameters:

• Chlorophyll-a (green algae) — early warning of algal bloom conditions
• Phycocyanin (blue-green algae / cyanobacteria) — detects harmful cyanobacteria activity
• Turbidity — measures water clarity and sediment levels
• Water temperature — tracks thermal trends and bloom risk
• Environmental conditions — measures solar light, rainfall, and wind
• Live GPS — always know the location of your deployed buoy

A turnkey system — "everything except the anchor." Every AlgaeTracker ships fully assembled and ready to deploy:

• A fully assembled, plug-and-play AlgaeTracker buoy
• Pre-installed core sensors and included rigging
• Built-in 4G cellular connectivity for automatic data transmission (20 MB per month allowance)
• Solar-powered system with self-cleaning sensors and low-maintenance, remote-diagnostic operation
• Encrypted data access through the Lake Pulse Portal

Deployment takes about 30 minutes with minimal infrastructure.

Note: A $1,000 security deposit is included in the price and is returned to you after you ship the buoy back in good condition.

Optional Add-On Sensors

Customize your buoy with additional sensors:

• pH — indicates water acidity/alkalinity, crucial for aquatic health
• Dissolved Oxygen (DO) — supports aquatic life; low levels signal contamination
• Conductivity & Salinity — detect industrial discharge or runoff contamination
• Dissolved Organic Matter & COD (UV254) — key indicators of organic pollutants

Contact Lake Pulse here to add additional sensors and have your invoice updated accordingly.

Before you deploy: Contact us to coordinate your deployment so your data subscription starts on the right day. Lining up activation with your launch means your time-series record begins clean — no gaps, no wasted days, and your buoy data flowing into Lake Pulse from the moment it hits the water.

Once your AlgaeTracker is live, its results stream in real time via API directly to your lake's Portal — open the menu to Data > Sources > Real Time. And just like the Weather Station, you can view your buoy's time-series data in the Analytics Hub under Trends, plotted over time right alongside your weather and water-quality story. From there, subscribers get:

• Early, real-time HAB warning — bloom conditions flagged before they're visible or dangerous
• Continuous in-water monitoring up to 48 times per day, with no site visits required to collect it
• The full bloom picture — chlorophyll-a, phycocyanin, turbidity, and temperature read in your lake, paired with the weather drivers behind them
• A continuous time-series record in the Analytics Hub that strengthens every diagnostic bundle and supports trend analysis across the season
• Alert-ready data that can generate notifications or be shared with stakeholders
• Dashboard-native data — your buoy lives alongside weather and water quality in Lake Pulse, not in a separate app

Need help interpreting your results or planning next steps? The Lake Pulse Boathouse is here to support subscribers anytime.