Saw the 'fungus' in the header; wow, this looks like a bunny trail thread.

A friend of mine works on Toyostoves, which is a heating oil monitor which is quite popular here in Alaska. They usually burn #1 diesel. He has noticed here lately with the fuel filters that he is getting algae in them.

Turns out this is common of the petroleum products that come out of Cook Inlet refineries. Here in the Interior, we usually have fuel distribution out of the refinery in North Pole (20 mi ESE of Fairbanks, thankyouverymuch); their petroleum source is off the North Slope.

The reason we are seeing the algae in the Interior now is because the Pogo Gold Mine and the Missile Defect System down at Ft Greely are demanding these resources, so we're seeing more fuel come up to us out of Anchorage.

He took a sample of this stuff to a guy who specializes in studying microorganisms associated with petroleum products, and said this is quite common of Cook Inlet product, as it's an offshore source.

The PNW gets a fair amount of petroleum distribution from this area, IIRC.

Not a lot you can do about it as the algae ingests this stuff. Just gotta keep on top of your filter changes I reckon.

I did a google for 'algae in fuel products' and came up with this; very interesting.

http://www.algae-x.net/faq.htm