Red macro ID & advice

[castiel]

This is a poor pic and I guess might make it hard to ID, but I got a bunch of this dark red macro last week ... well within a week it has turned almost translucent and glows orange under my blue moonlights! It is very 'solid' and fairly heavy (sinks under its own weight), and I would love to care for it better if I knew what it was.

 

 

Any ideas?

[keydiver]

is it gelatinous? How slippery? Does it break easily? Rigid? It could be a number of things. A better description would help a ton

[RESONANCE]

It's nemastoma. Pretty sure from what you describe. Nice find.

 

Edit: Did it come attached to a rock? If not and it was given to you unattached, more than likely it'll die on you getting smaller day by day. Nemastoma is one of the more difficult macros to artificially propagate in the hobby. If you found it on some live rock and purchased the rock with it, then you're safe.

 

Had a few frags of it before, never been able to keep them long run as they kept wasting away.

 

Likes moderate flow and moderate light from what I've heard and read.

[grmoore]

it looks very much like Predaea weldii.

 

As Resonance says, it is of the Nemastomataceae Family.

[castiel]

Thanks, I knew this forum would know what it was =0)

 

is it gelatinous? How slippery? Does it break easily? Rigid? It could be a number of things. A better description would help a ton

yes gelatinous and yes slippy, I feel like it would bounce if I threw it at the wall!

 

It's nemastoma. Pretty sure from what you describe. Nice find.

 

Edit: Did it come attached to a rock? If not and it was given to you unattached, more than likely it'll die on you getting smaller day by day. Nemastoma is one of the more difficult macros to artificially propagate in the hobby. If you found it on some live rock and purchased the rock with it, then you're safe.

 

Had a few frags of it before, never been able to keep them long run as they kept wasting away.

 

Likes moderate flow and moderate light from what I've heard and read.

No it came rockless unfortunately, I tried pinning it down with small rocks (three separate pieces right now), but all look the same and in different parts of the tank. I did get a piece glued to a frag tile (the giver thought it might be a different species but looked the same to me), which still has some red where it is touching the tile but has also gone transparent on the ends.

 

it looks very much like Predaea weldii.

 

As Resonance says, it is of the Nemastomataceae Family.

Thanks, appreciate the ID.

 

I'm going to get in touch with the person who gave it to me (at a frag meet) to see if they have ever successfully taken frags. I think they said it is the first time they have done so, so separating from the mother rock and colony might be the issue. Shame if so as it was really beautiful for about a day when I got it.

[NewZealandReefie]

Looks exactly like the red dictyota I had in my RSM... it goes orange and fluorescent when it's dying.

 

Pefectly willing to admit I know #### all about algae in general but dictyota I'm very familiar with it, as it invaded my old tank and I spent a while murdering it all (it reaches a certain point and is very invasive). Unfortunately most of the pics on google and such are crap and don't compare to the algae as I know it. I'll see if I can find some in my archives to compare it to for you cas.

[castiel]

Well hopefully some good news. Although 90% of the algae has gone white and presumably died (though I am leaving it there just in case ...) there is a chunk on one of the pieces that has retained its red colour. I wonder if it will grow from there?

 

Poor picture quickly edited in Google+ to try and show the red piece:

[johnmaloney]

looks like a predea species. knobby, gelatinous, irregular branching... it is in the nemastomcaea family, just not the nemastoma genus. Excuse all the misspellings, latin is for romans.