Algae  can be branched or straight

Oscillatoria or blue green algae                         Merismopedia glauca

It can be motile like Oscillatoria or colonial

Anabaena                                                           Woronichinia naegeliana

It can be curled or in small free floating clusters

They can have stars in the center or spirals

Zygnema                                                                             Spirogyra

Aphanizomenon flos-aquae

Some can be short, free floating and cause lots of TSS problems and some can be more animal like

Volvox

Achnantes taeniata Blue Green algae and Beggiatoa

Blue-greens are responsible for nitrogen fixation on land and in water, which can be a problem.

It appears as the system  get older or during lake turnover, which would correlate to less DO in the lake and more septicity, the brown algae and diatoms seemed to take over.

Obviously, we can only cover so much on algae and the problems associated in this website page.