Shaving Brush Plant???

[sweetrav18]

I was wondering if anyone had experience with this plant in their display. Im trying to add some green coor and have the added benefit of nitrate reduction. How fast does it grow/spread..and should I worrying about it taking over the tank like some forms of caulpera do??

[Jeremy Blaze]

Never seen one live in captivity.

[Rikko]

I assume you mean Penicillus sp.
It's a calcerous algae that prefers to have the bulb buried in around 2" of fine sand substrate. It has reasonably slow growth rates (Calfo said it's fairly lousy for nutrient export for that reason) and unlike most calcerous algaes is forgiving of lower light.

[Pike]

It's a pretty plant. Slow growth, so appropriate for the display, especially in a caribbean/keys biotope.

[Electrobes]

man I have to admit something to you guys... whoever said this was a slow growing plant.. is out of their mind! j/k I may just be a freak in the stat system but my shaving brush algae is a growing machine. the week I got him it grew out two new buds.. they became full grown in three weeks.. I pruned it.. and now I have 4 more buds and they are full grown! I have to admit though I gave some of my cuts to others and they died. I have these in my display with a 250 metal halide 12 inches from the water. It is an SPS tank dominated.. also with halimedia and I am also looking for more macros to put in.. not for cleaning the water.. just because I find them pretty. Great little plant.. very interesting...

[reeftec]

it depends to your lighting i had mine under 1000w of light ,yes they were buding crazy,but still compare to other algaes is slow growing,tangs will rip it apart if you keep tangs in your tank

[Electrobes]

hmm.. my purple tang could care less about these plants... is it supposed to grow faster than halidmedia?

[reeftec]

you are lucky,i lost all mine to apurple tang it did not eat any of it but after 2 days of being in the tank it wiped out all the brush algae i moved mine to refuge,i never kept haidmedia in my tank

[55gSW]

I used to have this macro and like Electrobes said, mine grew very fast too. I had it in a nano where there was nothing to munch on it. I did take a couple of the plants and tried them in my main tank and the yellow tang got a really good meal. A couple of snails finished off what was left. I would love to have some in my display tank but not with my tang in there.

[Paul B]

I have seen acres of it growing in very shallow water in Aruba which is one of the Caribbean Islands with the strongest sunshine. I have never kept it in a reef.
Paul