Who grows macro algae in their DT tank?

[BContos]

I am looking into adding it to my DT to give a more organic feel since this tank is FOWLR predator tank.

Any tips/things to consider? I am not keen on the idea of spending a pretty penny on some only for my inverts to wipe it out so this is a major concern for me only having it so far in my sump.

 

[Doctorgori]

don’t use caulerpra
…. red ogo isn’t bad if it takes and nothing chows on it ..
following mostly

 

[tharbin]

Most inverts and fish also don't mess with the calcareous macros (Merman's Shaving Brush, Halimedia, Christmas Tree, Mermaid's Fan, etc.). I always had some of these in FOWLRs.

 

[BaghdadBean]

Red Ogo did awesome for me, and it took hold in places I didn’t expect, like off the return nozzle/locline stuff. I bought mine from the local Asian supermarket and never had any problems with unwanted grossness or disease coming in off it, since they kept their growout system immaculate as it was for human consumption. I ran a pretty nutrient heavy system, so it would probably do great in a FOWLR that‘s well stocked and not over skimmed. Bonus was if it overgrew, I ALWAYS had people who wanted it for their tangs.

 

[BContos]

Red Ogo did awesome for me, and it took hold in places I didn’t expect, like off the return nozzle/locline stuff. I bought mine from the local Asian supermarket and never had any problems with unwanted grossness or disease coming in off it, since they kept their growout system immaculate as it was for human consumption. I ran a pretty nutrient heavy system, so it would probably do great in a FOWLR that‘s well stocked and not over skimmed. Bonus was if it overgrew, I ALWAYS had people who wanted it for their tangs.

How did you get it to take hold?

 

[dennis romano]

I am doing the same thing. Just remember, if you get wild macro, you may be introducing all kinds of pests.

 

[BaghdadBean]

How did you get it to take hold?

To be honest all I did was shove it in corners where it didn’t get blown all over. When it blew around it drove me crazy, so I rubber banded some of it to a rock. My tang ate the freaking rubber band!!! So I took some and put it between two rocks, kinda holding it in place with the rocks. Eventually it just started to ”root” itself to random locations all on its own. When I quit micromanaging where it went, it sorta blew into locations that it naturally stuck in, and then it grew out from there. It did like to grow more in higher flow areas, which wasn’t what I expected, and it grew along the rim of the tank where the return was roughly aimed, as well as off the return locline, and around the closed loop outlets. Here’s a full tank shot to show you where it established itself. Forgive my janky hood, I had a toddler and didn’t want him staring up into the metal halide.


It doesn’t dig low low nutrient systems, but if you’ve got some detectable nitrate and phosphates, it’ll rock out all on its own. It started growing fast enough that my Tomini tang stayed super fat and still didn’t eradicate the ogo. Ulva, on the other hand, that disappeared FAST and I had to grow it out in its own tank with the same food/fertilizer that I used for my phyto tanks. When I put the ogo in my tank, I had some respectable hair algae going on. The ogo out competed it, but I had it running in both display and refugium to accomplish that. I think it only took three or four weeks before it really got going. FWIW I ran 6500K lighting, not heavy actinic. I had a 250w Iwasaki 6500K metal halide in a Lumenarc reflector. I did notice that the ogo liked that light better than the 20K radium, but once it got established it switched over to the radium and did okay, but not explosive like the 6500K. So maybe give it a bit of white and red light to get it established? Might have been coincidence, and purely nutrient related, I don’t know. I hope this helps.

 

[JoJosReef]

I just started, so no good advice here, but I first added a pencil cap (ok), mermaid fan (frayed and out it went) and a brotycladia stripped of grapes. The snails climbed all over the broty and broke most of the branches, but new grapes are growing out of the bottom, so maybe it will take off on its own!

And now I just added pom pom and codium. Will see if that works.

This is all in a 10g office tank.

 

[Doctorgori]

I’ve only got halmedia and shaving brush to take hold. it’s wasn’t easy and I’ve lost a few. Halmedia use to br VERY common on live rock, not so much anymore.
hope the OP doesn’t mind, but where is everyone getting stock? Hope this doesn’t stretch the TOS but I’ve had good luck at live plants dot com and Reefcleaners

 

[Hugh Mann]

I had chaeto and red gracilaria in my former DT. The chaeto was wedged between the rock and glass. Gracilaria was hooked to a spare veg clip. Both grew excellent, and none of my fish bothered them.

I will add the chaeto served as a fantastic breeding ground for pods and brittle stars. When I would remove some chunks I legit had dozens and dozens of them in a softball sized chunk.

 

[dennis romano]

I’ve only got halmedia and shaving brush to take hold. it’s wasn’t easy and I’ve lost a few. Halmedia use to br VERY common on live rock, not so much anymore.
hope the OP doesn’t mind, but where is everyone getting stock? Hope this doesn’t stretch the TOS but I’ve had good luck at live plants dot com and Reefcleaners

Try my saltwaterfishstore.com also known as foxycorals. I got a few nice pieces there

 

[BaghdadBean]

Halimeda keeps being brought up, so I guess it’s appropriate to share experiences with that too (Spoiler alert, I love macro and tried growing a LOT of it in my display tank with lots of different results). So the Halimeda used to come in a LOT on premium gulf rock, and one of my tanks was started with that. At first, it didn’t grow real well, but I upgraded my lighting from regular fluorescent lights to VHO’s, and it bumped up fine after that. But when I swapped in metal halides, it EXPLODED. Halimeda does need a bit of light acclimation at first, but when you can ramp it up pretty fast. The problem I had with it was that it consumed soooo much magnesium and calcium, I lost my montipora colonies and had to restart them from fragments of the original colonies. It was growing way faster than the corals could, and even with a calcium reactor, it stripped calcium and magnesium faster than the montipora could keep up with. My acros survived, but I lost 6 year old montis.

I ended up ripping out the halimeda, and tried the feathery looking caulerpa taxifolia. That stuff turned out to be even more prolific than the halimeda, which was saying something since I was stripping 2lbs of halimeda weekly from my tank and refugium (which had only PC lights on it). At one point, it went sexual, and I had to do a mad dash of water changes and carbon, while ripping out huge wads of caulerpa and cussing out my planted reef tank schizophrenic aspirations. I ended up having to go through the tank with tweezers to try to remove every single strand of the caulerpa, because it was insanely well entrenched on my rocks. It still came back in little patches (as did the halimeda) for years, but as long as I kept it trimmed way back it didn’t cause more problems.

For a FOWLR the halimeda would probably be fine. I wouldn’t ever put that feathery caulerpa in another tank again unless I was going to dedicate a portion of each night to trimming it.

 

[GoReefin]

I just started, so no good advice here, but I first added a pencil cap (ok), mermaid fan (frayed and out it went) and a brotycladia stripped of grapes. The snails climbed all over the broty and broke most of the branches, but new grapes are growing out of the bottom, so maybe it will take off on its own!

View attachment 2572843
View attachment 2572842

And now I just added pom pom and codium. Will see if that works.

View attachment 2572851
View attachment 2572849

This is all in a 10g office tank.

Awesome! Show us a pic when it grows out!

 

[tharbin]

Halimeda keeps being brought up, so I guess it’s appropriate to share experiences with that too (Spoiler alert, I love macro and tried growing a LOT of it in my display tank with lots of different results). So the Halimeda used to come in a LOT on premium gulf rock, and one of my tanks was started with that. At first, it didn’t grow real well, but I upgraded my lighting from regular fluorescent lights to VHO’s, and it bumped up fine after that. But when I swapped in metal halides, it EXPLODED. Halimeda does need a bit of light acclimation at first, but when you can ramp it up pretty fast. The problem I had with it was that it consumed soooo much magnesium and calcium, I lost my montipora colonies and had to restart them from fragments of the original colonies. It was growing way faster than the corals could, and even with a calcium reactor, it stripped calcium and magnesium faster than the montipora could keep up with. My acros survived, but I lost 6 year old montis.

I ended up ripping out the halimeda, and tried the feathery looking caulerpa taxifolia. That stuff turned out to be even more prolific than the halimeda, which was saying something since I was stripping 2lbs of halimeda weekly from my tank and refugium (which had only PC lights on it). At one point, it went sexual, and I had to do a mad dash of water changes and carbon, while ripping out huge wads of caulerpa and cussing out my planted reef tank schizophrenic aspirations. I ended up having to go through the tank with tweezers to try to remove every single strand of the caulerpa, because it was insanely well entrenched on my rocks. It still came back in little patches (as did the halimeda) for years, but as long as I kept it trimmed way back it didn’t cause more problems.

For a FOWLR the halimeda would probably be fine. I wouldn’t ever put that feathery caulerpa in another tank again unless I was going to dedicate a portion of each night to trimming it.

I agree halimedia in a FOWLR is great, in a reef tank, not so much. You need to control it and you will almost positively need to supplement calcium. I didn't used to test magnesium so I wasn't aware of that but I used ESV B-ionic so I guess it at least partially fixed it for me anyway. Any macro algae can become a nuisance if left unchecked. I once had an explosion of Merman's Shaving Brush in a tank. You need to supplement in a reef tank for all of the calcareous algae but I think overall they are easier to control, certainly far easier than any Caulerpa I tried or Ulva.

 

[GoReefin]

I have a few different macro algae in my tanks. Love the look in the display tanks!

I agree calpura in the main display is bad.
I have some in one of my display tanks now. Hard to manage it.