Red tide isn't actually red. 🌊 Most of the time it's a brownish-green murk in the water — sometimes you smell it before you see it. Dead fish on the shoreline. Closed shellfish beds. Beach advisories that keep people out of the water for weeks. It's caused by a rapid bloom of algae called Karenia brevis — a naturally occurring organism that, under the right conditions, explodes in population. Warm water temperatures, high nutrient runoff from land, calm currents. When those factors line up, the bloom takes over and releases brevetoxins that paralyze fish, suffocate manatees, and make shellfish unsafe to eat. Florida's Gulf Coast sees it most severely. Some years it's barely a blip. Others — like 2018 — it stretches for hundreds of miles and lasts months. Here's the part that gets overlooked: nutrient runoff from agriculture and stormwater is one of the factors that makes blooms worse and longer. Nitrogen and phosphorus flowing off land feeds the algae. Cleaner waterways don't prevent blooms entirely, but they make the conditions for a catastrophic one less likely. What's the closest coast or waterway to you? Tell us below. #redtide #harmfulalgalbloom #kareniabrevis #gulfcoast #waterquality