Tuesday June 23, 2026 Honeoye Lake Water Quality

Terry Gronwall
Jun 23
3 min read

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Muller Field Station Summer Program Schedule and European Frog Bit Pull Information.

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Surface Water Temperature: ~70.7 F

Water Clarity: ~8.3 Feet

Lake Level: 803.2 Feet above sea level

Lake level is just slightly below weir level.

Observations: Tuesday (6/23/26), Water clarity was ~8.3 feet same as the last week. The surface water temperature was ~70.7 F about a 1.8 F decrease over the last week. This cooler weather is helping to maintain good water quality in the lake. It was an overcast day with a light NW wind.

We found increasing amounts of Gloeotrichia (lots of small spikes) in the water column today. Gloeotrichia usually arrives in mid-June. See image on the left. We also continued to find small amounts of Anabaena (Dolchospermum) (looks like a spring or chain of beans) and Microcystis (looks like a group of small round cells) too. Anabaena and Microcystis usually don’t show up until July. So, they are about a month early. See images below: You should be watchful for Gloeotrichia, Anabaena, Microcystis blooms lake wide over the next few weeks particularly when we have 80-90 F days with calm winds. More information on Gloeotrichia and Anabaena can be found at: https://www.honeoyelakewatershed.org/habs

Several research studies have found that most of the phosphorus that fuels Honeoye Lake’s blue-green algae blooms is released from the lake bottom sediments when the lake’s dissolved oxygen level goes below 0.5 mg/L in the deeper parts of the lake breaking the phosphors/iron bond in the bottom sediments releasing phosphorus into the water column. The dissolved oxygen (DO) level near the lake bottom at ~9 m (~30 feet) was 0.3 mg/L today. This means that a small amount of phosphorus should be released from the ~5 acres of 9 m bottom sediments into the deepest part of the lake water at this time. However, all water depths less than 9 m still had DO above 1.18 mg/L and should not be releasing phosphorus into the deep water. If we do not have a complete lake mixing event soon, we expect that the dissolved oxygen near the bottom at 7 m to 8 m will go anoxic (DO = <0.5 mg/L) later in June releasing significant phosphorus from the bottom sediments potentially fueling a blue-green algae bloom. Today’s temperature and dissolved oxygen graphs will be posted on the left in a day or two when they are available.

As of today (6/23/26), there has not been any public Honeoye Lake HAB reports submitted to the DEC HABs alert map (NYHABS) yet this year.

Always use your own visual assessment before making contact with the lake water at this time of year as the blue-green algae situation can change daily if not hourly. Please regularly check the DEC HABs alert map for more detailed updates on Honeoye Lake HABs alerts:

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/e5dec19912454731a308bbb7af605fb3/

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