The goal of this study was to select algal strains suitable for growth in winter conditions in Mesa Arizona. A novel photobioreactor was used to down select strains via light and temperature cycling representative of outdoor algae ponds. After down selection strains were deployed outdoors in 1000 L algal raceway ponds in the winter to corroborate indoor data. 18s sequencing data is supplied here as this was used to phylogenically genotype the strains