Shaving Brush Plant

[rubadakis]

Thinking about getting a couple of Shaving Brush Plants for my tank. Any comments? Do they release nutrients back into the water? Any reported problems?

 

Any info. will be helpful. Thanks in advance!

[lakshwadeep]

Shaving brush algae (Pencillus) are an ornamental macroalgae that have a calcified skeleton. Because growth is not very fast, they aren't useful as a substitute for algae like Chaetomorpha. They don't normally release nutrients (I'm not sure what algae does). You need decent calcium/alkalinity levels for proper growth; although, they aren't invasive. They do best "planted" in the sand.

[rubadakis]

Shaving brush algae (Pencillus) are an ornamental macroalgae that have a calcified skeleton. Because growth is not very fast, they aren't useful as a substitute for algae like Chaetomorpha. They don't normally release nutrients (I'm not sure what algae does). You need decent calcium/alkalinity levels for proper growth; although, they aren't invasive. They do best "planted" in the sand.

 

Thanks for the info. I dont plan on using it to substitute chaeto. I think it will look good on my tank. Just wanted to make sure I was not adding something that would compromise the stability of my tank.

 

Anyone else?

[SlowGoing]

Good information here. I was interested too!

[Trav86]

I bought a couple shaving brushes. It's my first macro aglae. They grow a lot faster than what I thought they would. After a week they grew atleast an inch (brush part) and there was another brush sprouting. Now two weeks later and I have almost another full sized brush. Mabye they just like my tank, I don't know. Chaeto must grow very fast if shaving brushes are considered slow.

[SlowGoing]

Where did you purchase your's?

 

I'm looking to start macro for fun.

[Trav86]

Where did you purchase your's?

 

I'm looking to start macro for fun.

 

I got mine from sealifeinc.net. Very nice people there. They like to throw in freebies with your order too. I only ordered 2 shaving brushes and they threw in a pine brush. Never heard of it before but it's similar to the shaving brush I'm guessing.

[lakshwadeep]

The new "shoot" grows very quickly, but it after that there isn't much growth. Interestingly, the two times I had one, it would make a "rhizome" and form a new shoot while the old one disintegrated. In that way, I had one move across the entire tank.