We examined the bacterial flora associated with 20 cultured strains of Ectocarpus sp. from different locations, and recorded both the bacterial diversity associated directly to the alga and that found in the culture medium. Experiments were carried out to amplify an approximately 400 bp fragment of the bacterial 16S comprising the V3 and V4 regions and sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq platform using V2 reagents ( 2x250 bp reads).