Operation

Applications

Measurement of benthic algae on sand, stone and in very shallow water:

• waterway analysis and assessment
• general environmental assessment
• limnological work
• research and education

Operation

The BenthoFluor is housed in a watertight, carbon-fibre reinforced case and, during use, is transported in the supplied backpack or placed in a small boat. All the electronics, data processing and storage are confined in this unit, with the light irradiation and subsequent fluorescence being transmitted along a 1.5 m fibre-optic cable to a submersible adapter. Different sensor heads are used for different surfaces. The sensor heads ensure a constant distance between the sediment and the fibre-optic cable, and thus a constant intensity of excitation light; they exclude ambient light enabling "adaptation to darkness", and prevent disturbance of the sediment layers. The unit is controlled via a small hand-held waterproof PC (PDA).

Powerful software features

The chlorophyll-a content is displayed in real time within a range of 0-3 µg/cm². Up to three algae classes are measured simultaneously. All data are recorded on the display of the PDA or stored in the datalogger of the BenthoFluor for further analysis. The ability to obtain and evaluate the results on site, i.e. at the place of measurement, makes the BenthoFluor a valuable tool in benthic algae analysis.

The BenthoFluor kit comes with bbe software for use with Windows and uses spectral fingerprints of standardised algae from laboratory cultures, but also permits the calibration of user-defined algae as a special class.

The BenthoFluor is a versatile instrument. It can be converted into a submersible FluoroProbe within half an hour by simply removing of the cable holder with the fibre optics. Appliance of the parameter set for FluoroProbe operations requires only a PC and FluoroProbe software (supplied).