What type of Macro?

[dgphelps]

I am thinking of trying to grow a little macro algae in my tank now that I have MHs. Anyone have any suggestions on which is the best? I would love a calcareous algae like halimedia but have heard it is very difficult to keep growing even with kalk additions. Then there is all the spore issues with caleurpa. Chaeto would be good for pods to live in. Do all macro algaes make the water yellowish?

Thanks for any info.

[bookfish]

My 2 favorite are halimeda incressata and codium.
LMK if you need and we can work it out.-Jim

[racrumrine]

I like halimeda in the main tank. I don't think it takes much to help it grow.

I don't know if they still have it; but, when we had the swap at TP, they had a display tank in the side room with a beautiful bush of it.

The last couple of times I was there, I forgot to check to see if they still had it.

Jim, if you have extra, I'd love to get some more at the swap.

Best of luck,

Roy

[dgphelps]

I did some more homework on macros here on reefcentral and think it is so funny how people have such opposing opinions. Some folks tell horror stories about halimeda going sexual and when you look into you see they don't run skimmers and have 15 gallon nanos. I would imagine almost anything wrong even slightly could wipe them out.

Then there are the people who say that halimeda can cause coral disease and actually host the bacteria for it. And of course folks who love it and have kept it years and years.

Sometimes I think it is better to not research things.

I would be interested in codium and halimeda for my tank. You wouldn't be willing to ship would ya Jim? :) I don't have anything you would want to trade for it though. Unless you would like some of my vast GSP growth. LOL. Seriously LMK how you would like to work this out.

Thanks.

[bookfish]

Let's see
Codium-free
halimeda-free
first overnight fedex delivery Oakland to San Francisco-$60.00
I'll just bring what extra I have of each to the swap and we can split it however many ways.-Jim

[dgphelps]

:)

When is the January swap planned for anyhow? After the holidays I am hoping to get back to a meeting or at least the swap. We have been gearing up for the holidays and I haven't been able to slip away on a Saturday. I know I missed some good stuff too. :(

I can't wait till these darn holidays are over and I can relax a bit. Plus, folks are not being exactly cheery this year it seems. At least not from a retail merchants POV.

[bookfish]

01/08/05 in Hayward. Hope you can make it.-Jim

[sfsuphysics]

Well Daniel if you can't make it to a swap let me know, I'll pick it up from Jim for you and then you can swing by whenever you're free.

Personally I dont find any issue with any macroalgae except for maybe that some grows like weeds and attaches itself to everything. But with a Foxface & Naso Tang that isn't an issue anymore in my maintank. I've heard all the horror stories of Caulerpa going asexual or whatever, but my fish eat it quick enough that it won't have the time to do it.

[dgphelps]

Thanks Mike, I hope to make it to the frag swap as I need to get a few little things for my tank now that I have all my little projects wrapped up. But, if I can't I may take you up on that.

[phishphan]

dgphelps,

What is that thing in your avatar? I have something like that in my tank attached to one of my rocks.

By the way, I have a lot of sargassum in my tank. It looks neat, but grows like a weed. I recently purchased a Naso to help slow the spread of the macro.

[dgphelps]

My avatar is one of my stomatella varia snails in my tank that came in with the live rock. They are hardy, mostly come out at night and reproduce easily in reef tanks. Unfortunately all mine are males so no babies will be coming any time soon. I tried getting a few more locally with no luck a while back.

Wouldn't sargassum tint the water a yellowish color? Do you run carbon to counteract it?

[dgphelps]

Macro algae helps to keep things like cyano at bay right by draining all the nutrients and such? When my cyano "bloom" started on my sandbed a year ago I thought, that's normal. I have heard of periodic blooms. Now after upgrading my lighting, do weekly 10 gallon water changes etc it has lessened but is still there. I am thinking getting a good fast growing macro in there will help finally get rid of this darn bloom.

Out out damn spot.

[73ChargerFan]

Does halimeda go sexual? I thought that was caulerpa.

Halimeda looks great but is a calcium consumer, so maybe it's better with a calcium reactor.

Chaeto seems to be the macro du jour.

[dgphelps]

Yeah, I think that is what I am going to try first, chaeto. I only add kalk so I don't want any added headache of calcium reactors. Plus, I don't really have any major calcium consumers and think it may be better that way.

Anyone is SF getting ready to trim back their chaeto? I wouldn't mind decking my tank with boughs of chaeto this holiday season. [sorry, had to] faLAlalalalalaLAla. :P

[JoeMack]

halimeda can go sexual from what one person said that it happend to him once, plus it eats up you Ca/Alk and as it grows you have to add more and more cause it will take up more and more.

Chato rocks all. It doesn't leave rhizomes in the rocks that you cant ever get rid of like calurpa, and I have never heard of it going sexual. Call it prude but its the way to go :lol: