grmoore Posted November 18, 2011 Author Share Posted November 18, 2011 I have mine about 3 inches from the surface under 8x54watt T5's and it seems to be slowly turning red. I would say it's difficult to keep yellow. My golden colored Eucheuma is about 6" from the lamps and is maintaining the golden color. The bright yellow was about 3" from the lamps and started to die off - I presume from too much light. I've shaded that plant with halymenia and it appears to be recovering - time will tell. I'm not sure light is the sole issue on the bright yellow plants. Link to comment
NinjaBum Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Mine held strong for about a week and a half, but now it's a rusty orange color. Probably wind up red in another week or two. Link to comment
Disher Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 Do you prepare your SW with dechlorinated tap water or RO/DI? I'll be setting up a macro tank soon and wanted to know if that was a good idea. Awesome tank I love how lush your macros look. Link to comment
grmoore Posted November 20, 2011 Author Share Posted November 20, 2011 Do you prepare your SW with dechlorinated tap water or RO/DI? I'll be setting up a macro tank soon and wanted to know if that was a good idea. Awesome tank I love how lush your macros look. Thanks for the kind words! I mixed my saltwater with distilled water from a local water company (Gordon Brothers). I've done one 5 gallon water change since I set it up, and use distilled for the top off water. I occasionally add saltwater back in instead of distilled to keep my specific gravity where I want it. If you test your tap for phosphates and they are at zero, tap is a good way to go. Otherwise you can't go wrong with distilled or RO/DI. If you plan on having coral or fish, I personally would stay away from the tap water. Again, that is just my personal opinion and is based on no real testing. Others swear by tap water and they seem to do just fine with it. Link to comment
keydiver Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 i love the barbata! If you have any macros you're looking to trim or trade, please let me know i'm always looking to add Link to comment
NinjaBum Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 I used tap water, but it made diatoms go nuts in my tank so I'm stopping for the time being. Link to comment
grmoore Posted November 21, 2011 Author Share Posted November 21, 2011 i love the barbata! If you have any macros you're looking to trim or trade, please let me know i'm always looking to add I have a ton of Cymopolia barbata now - the stuff grows like crazy. I'll probably have to trim soon as I changed food from SeaChem Flourish Nitrogen to Gulf Coast Ecosystem's KNO3 and I have had a virtual explosion of growth. Link to comment
Euphyllia Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 Your tank is the shizz. Link to comment
grmoore Posted November 22, 2011 Author Share Posted November 22, 2011 Your tank is the shizz. Thanks! Link to comment
NinjaBum Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 How's the Eucheuma looking? Mine turned a bright red and started breaking pieces of itself off. Mother colony looks normal, but now I have a bunch of smaller pieces growing in random places. Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 How's the Eucheuma looking? Mine turned a bright red and started breaking pieces of itself off. Mother colony looks normal, but now I have a bunch of smaller pieces growing in random places. Hi Ninja... about the same thing. Both clumps are a dark orange (still pretty). I had a few pieces break off and I put them in various places to grow out. The brightest yellow clump I kept near the water surface and it started to bleach out rapidly so I moved it down. The golden yellow was very happy about 4 inches below the water surface but it still got darker. Oh well, as long as it's growing I'm happy! Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 Over the past few weeks I've had an outbreak of cyano. I think it was triggered by a couple of factors. First my skimmer (AquaticLife 115) was giving me fits not skimming and dumping billions of microbubbles into the tank. The bubbles weren't any real issue other than visually, but it simply wouldn't dial in after cleaning it, so I yanked it from the tank and put an airstone in for night time aeration. Secondly, I added a dose of KNO3 from Gulf Coast Ecosystems. It is super concentrated and works great, but I pushed my nitrates up to around 20 using the specified dosage (double what I expected). The macros began growing like crazy - some doubling in size within a week, but the cyano bloom started a few days after the dosing. After doing research on cyano and various solutions, I decided to give Boyd's Chemi-Clean a try as recommended by NinjaBum. Here are my experiences with it... Before starting, I gave all of the macros a good shaking to free up any loose detritus and cyano. I also gave what substate I could see a gentle stirring/chopping to loosen up cyano sitting on the surface. Then, following the instructions, I removed all chemical media from the HOB filter (ChemiPure Elite and Purigen) and added an airstone to the HOB for aeration (run 24/7 for the duration of treatment). I added Chemi-Clean at the specified dosage - 1 level spoonful (spoon provided) for my 12g tank - and let it go to work. Almost immediately upon dosing, the size of the aeration bubbles became smaller, and their density much greater - it was definately doing something. After 8 hours, there was a noticeable improvement. The water was clearer, and cyano was slouphing off of the plants. The substrate was nearly clear, as was the glass - which I left some cyano on just for testing. No sign of stress at all on the macros, Zoas, fish or inverts. After 9 hours, I gave the plants another good shaking and more cyano sloughed off - things were looking good so far. The lights were turned off for the night - we'll see how things are the next day. After 29 hours, there is still some green slime, but the red cyano is pretty much gone. I can actually see my algaes again! I gave the plants another good shaking to remove any loose materials. There was quite a bit sloughing off, so I did quite a bit of shaking this time around. After 48 hours, things looked quite good. There was still some chunks of cyano stuck on some of the macros, as well as a little green slime. I went from plant to plant and rubbed the gunk off them as best I could, and gave everything a good shaking - I found a lot of asterina starfish living in the macros (cute little buggers). I cleaned the pump and filter screens and replaced the filter floss (I don't usually use filter floss, but added some to catch all of the crap being sloughed off the plants). I then did the prescribed 20% water change. I'm quite happy with the results of Chemi-Clean. It did what it was supposed to do, and didn't affect any of the livestock - not even the colonies of tunicates or hydroids. In fact, my Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp molted last night for the first time - whether that is a coincidence, an effect of removing all that cyano, or an effect of the water change I don't know, but I doubt it would have molted if Chemi-Clean was detrimental to the tank. I've put the skimmer back in the HOB and was able to get it dialed in pretty quickly this time - go figure. I'll leave that going 24/7 for a couple of days to removed any gunk from the water. I'll then add the chemical filtration back in and go back to running the skimmer only during the dark hours. I'll definately be keeping up on cleaning the macros off better every few days - adding that to my tank maintenance schedule. I think I'll also do the Chemi-Clean once a month as preventive maintenance. It definately does what it claims to do, and there appear to be no side effects at all. Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 14, 2011 Author Share Posted December 14, 2011 Just a quick update - I've had the skimmer running 24/7 for the past 2 days and it has been doing a very good job of pulling crap from the water. I've not seen the macros look this clean in a long time. The Chemi-Clean seems to still be working as all of the red slime seems to be gone and the green slime can only be seen in a few spots. The water is exceptionally clear. Link to comment
metrokat Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 my golden eucheuma has turned a dark orange and pieces are breaking off. what am i doing wrong? Other yellow macros melted too: sargassum, padina, doctoyama. Reds and greens seem to do great. Why won't yellows make it? Also, are there any blue macros that are easily bought other than ochtodes? thanks Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 18, 2011 Author Share Posted December 18, 2011 Hi Metrokat. I wish I knew the secret to Eucheuma. Like you, all of mine has turned a dark orange and broken into separate branches - each of which look healthy and are growing well. I honestly think it is a particular wavelength that I'm missing from my lamps (10K + actinic), and not the intensity. As for the blue algae, I've seen some blue ringed Padina before, and I currently have some blue calcareous algae that I've been told is Pom Pom Algae, but I'm not sure that is what it really is. I'll see if I can get a nice photo of it. Link to comment
miniwhinny Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Oh WOW! I had no idea macro's could be so beautiful. I have a feeling the photos don't even come close to how great it looks in person. Awesome! Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 19, 2011 Author Share Posted December 19, 2011 Oh WOW! I had no idea macro's could be so beautiful. I have a feeling the photos don't even come close to how great it looks in person. Awesome! Thanks for the kind words! Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 22, 2011 Author Share Posted December 22, 2011 Hi Metrokat. I wish I knew the secret to Eucheuma. Like you, all of mine has turned a dark orange and broken into separate branches - each of which look healthy and are growing well. I honestly think it is a particular wavelength that I'm missing from my lamps (10K + actinic), and not the intensity. As for the blue algae, I've seen some blue ringed Padina before, and I currently have some blue calcareous algae that I've been told is Pom Pom Algae, but I'm not sure that is what it really is. I'll see if I can get a nice photo of it. I tracked down the real name of the calcareous algae - Amphiroa rigida. It's a light violet, and gets whiter with more light. Here is a link to some images and a writeup on it... http://www2.units.it/biologia/Corallinales...oa_rigida_e.htm Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 25, 2011 Author Share Posted December 25, 2011 I found this interesting document from the Fiji Fisheries and Aquaculture Department discussing Eucheuma cultivation. A bit of interesting information in there about the algae... http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC287E/AC287E00.htm Link to comment
metrokat Posted December 25, 2011 Share Posted December 25, 2011 Thanks for the info. Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 28, 2011 Author Share Posted December 28, 2011 I started reading through all of the old macro algae posts in this forum and the stickied thread entitled 'The Marine Planted Tank & Macro Algae Thread' by bitts prompted me to do some additional reading on marine algae lighting requirements. I'm by no means an expert, I'm just trying to find information that will help make my macro algaes thrive. Here is what I found from various sources: Chlorophyta (Green Algae) contain chlorophyll A (blue-green), chlorophyll B (yellow-green) and beta-carotene (yellow), giving them a green color. Phaeophyta (Brown Algae) contain chlorophyll A (blue-green), chlorophyll C and lipid pigments called fucoxanthins, giving them a golden-brown color. Rhodophyta (Red Algae) contain chlorophyll A and lipid pigments called phycobilins, giving them a red or deep blue color. There are four types of Phycobilin - Phycoerythrobilin (red), Phycourobilin (orange), Phycoviolobilin (violet) and Phycocyanobilin (blue). Fucoxantin and both phycocyanobilin and phycoerythrobilin can be made to fluoresce at particular wavelengths, providing irridescent algaes. There are several different types of chlorophyll with variations within each type - chlorophyll A, chlorophyll B, chlorophyll C, chlorophyll D and chlorophyll F are the basic ones. Chlorophyll A is the primary chlorophyll of all algaes as it is essential to photosynthesis. The other pigments, called accessory pigments, help absorb light and provide the color of the algae. These combinations of accessory pigments are efficient at collecting light at certain frequencies and at certain levels of intensity. Too much intensity will damage the pigment. Pigments are molecules that absorb specific wavelenghts of light while reflecting others. The reflected wavelengths are what give pigments their colors. Chlorophyll A absorbs light in the violet, blue and red spectrum, while reflecting green Chlorophyll B extends the absorbtion of chlorophyll A by absorbing more of the blue, green and yellow Chlorophyll C absorbs light in the violet, yellow and red spectrum. Although I can no longer find the reference, it appears yellow algae (eg yellow Eucheuma) require strong violet light to maintain their coloration. Perhaps additional actinic lighting would help these plants. I'll keep adding to this post as I find more information. I hope this helps others in understanding the lighting requirements of macro algaes... I know it has helped me. Link to comment
iball1804 Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Well aren't you Mr. Macro. Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 28, 2011 Author Share Posted December 28, 2011 Well aren't you Mr. Macro. Hardly - there are many others on here with more experience and nicer algae displays than me. Helpful post however - thanks for your input. Link to comment
grmoore Posted December 30, 2011 Author Share Posted December 30, 2011 It's been a while since I posted any photos, so I thought I would put some various ones up I took this morning. You can click on the images to get the full HD version. One of several Udotea dixonii that have sprouted over the last couple months Amphiroa rigida A hitchhiker that was growing on the end of a piece of Botryocladia occidentalis Colonial Hydroids of some type... anyone know what kind they are? Skunk Cleaner Shrimp just hanging around Udotea dixonii showing new growths Cymopolia barbata Not sure what the real name is of this one yet Eucheuma spinosum I believe Pileolaria worm... I suddenly have a bunch of these on the back wall One lonely pineapple sponge One of my Blue-Green Chromis I just got my order from LAReefs, so I'll post some more pictures later. Link to comment
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