bleaching macro algae(graciliara)?

[marinebiologist]

alright so when i bought my CUC from reefcleaners.org i had ordered the penny macro algae. ill get you the name in a sec, but it said it did good in both low and high light and im running a 150w mh probably a little over a year old so def not as bright as originally. and it said that this plant gets light red the more light intensity and mine is turning white. why?

 

here it is

http://reefcleaners.org/index.php?page=sho...t&Itemid=34

[Shyla8]

Its dying. Let me guess,its graciliara? I always get that for a penny macro and the reason I guessed is I just got one and it did the same thing, hot pink, then white. But I am not sure why either. Whats your parameters?

[marinebiologist]

yep, exactly. well everything is in check except my nitrates, they are a little high i because i had a tank crash and im trying to get it back on its feet

[Pilg0re]

Same here, I just threw it in my AC70 and now it's mostly bleached.

[marinebiologist]

wow, i wonder why

[Shyla8]

Yeah I dunno. Macros like nitrates. My pico had zero but my other params were good. I thought it was my temp at 80 but guess not lol

[marinebiologist]

it says it does well under high lighting but i guess not. i think that it was in shock from being in pitch black for a couple of days and then being exposed to that intense light, thats my one theory. poor gracilaira

[faerl]

I had a similar issue. A whole batch of macro and the graciliara went white overnight. Rest of the macro algae did so a day or so after. No idea why, param's all within range and corals all seem to love the tank. But anytime I put macro algae in there (other than chaeto) it goes white pretty quick. Just decided it's not what I'm meant to keep.

[marinebiologist]

i wonder why this happens

 

well my clownfish enjoys eating the graciliara, haha

[faerl]

I'd love to figure out why it happens some day. I emailed John over at reefcleaners, his theory was I had too much light. But then, I have 110w LED's in a 24" deep tank. I love the light but the par ratings would be considered normal by most reef tank standards. My wife has 92w T5's in a 20gal tank and same issue there so too much light seems a bit of a stretch and if true having macro's in a reef environment just wouldn't be possible.

 

My LFS thought I needed light 24/7 in the tank (at least a little bit of light at night). Of course that made no sense considering the sun does go down at some point for algae in the ocean as well.

 

Guessing some parameter we don't test for in reefs very often is needed. The thing is, with how quickly it occurred in my tank I'm guessing some parameter level is too high for them. If it were low I would expect the process to be slower as the algae 'starves' for whatever it needs.

[marinebiologist]

oh yeah, your most likely right, i guess you would have to research the environment in which they live in and go from there

[gulfsurfer101]

Can you post pics of the macro, I always find some red stuff that looks pretty cool washed up on shore here and threw it in my tank once and it did turn white within a few days. I thought it might be lack of flow or oxygen since I found it rolling in heavy surf.

[MyHorseZip]

I've read that it likes to "tumble" which I am guessing means be beat around by some moderate to high flow...which seems reasonable as it is probably more like its natural habitat. Thoughts?

[marinebiologist]

mine is basically right infront of the flow

 

heres a pic

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_di...amp;pcatid=1127

[gulfsurfer101]

Sorry didn't catch that first link, That is the stuff I find here all the time. I threw it in a ten gallon along with some other stuff I found locally like sargassums and pipefish to give them a place to hide out and it died on me within days. The flow wasn't all great but the nitrates should have been through the roof since I had a bunch of barnicle dying out and some pipefish that didn't make the aclimation to the tank. It might have also been exxed out of compition by the green uvla rock that I put in the tank as well. You couldn't kill that stuff fornothing. Maybe your cheato other macro's have drowned it out.