Hydralife at the 13th U.S. Symposium on Harmful Algae: What the Symposium Does and the Abstract Hydralife Solutions is Presenting
Harmful algae blooms are now a yearly headline in almost every state. Roughly every two years, the scientists, agencies, and water managers working hardest on the problem gather in one place to compare notes. This October, Hydralife Solutions will be in that room.
The 13th U.S. Symposium on Harmful Algae, October 25 to 29, 2026, is at the DoubleTree Cedar Rapids Convention Complex in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hydralife has been invited to attend and present a poster on our work in competitive exclusion with beneficial phytoplankton. Below is what the symposium is, what it does, and the abstract we are bringing.
What the U.S. Symposium on Harmful Algae is
The U.S. Symposium on Harmful Algae is the national scientific meeting for the harmful algae bloom community in the United States. It brings researchers, lake and coastal managers, state and federal agencies, public health officials, industry, and affected communities together to discuss emerging challenges, innovative approaches, and updates in HAB science, management, policy, and programs.
The meeting moves around the country. Recent symposia were held in Baltimore, Maryland (2017), Orange Beach, Alabama (2019), online (2021), Albany, New York (2022), and Portland, Maine (2024). The 2026 meeting lands in Iowa, in the middle of the country's farm belt, where nutrient runoff from land into lakes, reservoirs, and rivers is one of the forces that feeds freshwater blooms.
What the symposium does
The symposium is where the field takes stock of itself. Its sessions cover the full arc of the problem:
Toxic Algal Bloom dynamics: why blooms start, what fuels them, and what makes some of them toxic.
Monitoring and forecasting: sampling, remote sensing, and models that give managers earlier warning.
Management and prevention: what states, territories, tribal nations, and cities are doing on the water, and what is working.
Emerging technologies: new tools and methods brought forward for scientists and managers to evaluate.
Public health and community engagement: how science reaches the people who swim, fish, farm, and drink from these waters.
Sessions run as 90 minute blocks of five 15 minute talks followed by discussion, alongside poster sessions where presenters stand with their work and take questions. That format matters. It puts new ideas directly in front of the limnologists and agency staff who will test them.
Who is behind it
The 2026 symposium is hosted by Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), and co-chaired by Clarissa Anderson, Director of the California Coastal Ocean Observing System, and Dr. Dail Laughinghouse, Associate Professor and State Extension Specialist at the University of Florida. A program committee drawn from across the HAB community builds the agenda, and NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science has helped spread the call for participation.
Why Hydralife is going
Hydralife works on the cause of a bloom rather than the bloom itself. Harmful algae and cyanobacteria bloom when a water body carries phosphate, ammonia, and nitrate. Hydralife introduces live, concentrated, multi-species beneficial phytoplankton that consumes those excess nutrients 24-7. The nutrients that would feed a bloom become the food source for a beneficial community instead, and the problem organisms then have significant competition for the nutrients they need. Hydralife's approach does not utilize copper, peroxide, or algaecides which can damage aquatic ecosystems.
Hydralife's method has a cornering advantage: it thrives in exactly the high nutrient water where blooms are most likely and where most alternatives struggle. It is also new to most water managers, which is why we lead with education and were invited to the symposium. The symposium is the right room to put the mechanism and our field results in front of scientists who work water for a living.
Our abstract
Competitive Exclusion with Beneficial Phytoplankton for Lake Productivity and HAB Prevention
Live beneficial phytoplankton offers a natural, practical way to prevent harmful algae blooms and improve lake productivity in nutrient-rich waters. Hydralife Solutions provides live, concentrated beneficial freshwater phytoplankton in bulk. The phytoplankton consumes phosphate, ammonia, and nitrate throughout the growing seasons. Through competitive exclusion it replaces problematic cyanobacteria, filamentous algae, and nuisance algae with multi-species, nutrient-consuming, nutritional microalgae. The phytoplankton feeds zooplankton, fish fry, and the aquatic food web, while utilizing carbon dioxide to increase dissolved oxygen, which builds a healthier ecosystem. In waters used for irrigation, phytoplankton acts as an excellent soil biostimulant. Hydralife has reduced nutrients from elevated levels to low or barely detectable levels through entire warm seasons, eliminated a posted cyanobacteria advisory on a public pond, and delivered healthier, more attractive, and more productive waters. Managers report less nuisance algae, no new harmful algae blooms, less labor, and a reduction in water management costs. Hydralife delivers live concentrated phytoplankton direct to site. The phytoplankton complements aeration, beneficial bacteria, and existing water management programs. Hydralife Solutions is a developing company with encouraging field results, offering a biological option with positive ecological outcomes for limnologists to consider. Hydralife Solutions welcomes conversations about at-risk waters, trial sites, or collaboration with current water management programs.
Meet us in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
If you are attending the symposium, stop by our poster. We want to talk with limnologists, lake managers, and agency staff about at-risk waters, trial sites, and how competitive exclusion can work alongside aeration, beneficial bacteria, and the programs you already run.
If you manage a nutrient-rich pond, lake, or irrigation reservoir and will not be in Iowa, we would still like to hear from you. Reach us at service@hydralifesolutions.com or 303.219.0623, or visit hydralife.org.
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