This data was collected during an short-term incubation experiment in March 2017 that investigated the response of a surface plankton community to upwelling. This experiment was carried in the framework of the SFB754-funded KOSMOS mesocosm study that took place in La Punta, Callao, Peru between February-April 2017. A total of six different treatments were used to disentangle chemical and biological characteristics of deep water that influence surface plankton blooms: 2 different deep water sources with different nutrient concentrations; 3 treatments to distinguish the effects of inorganic nutrients, organic nutrients and deep water microbial populations. Measured variables include inorganic nutrient concentrations, phytoplankton abundances, Chlorophyll a, cDOM, and rates of leucine aminopeptidase activity.