Best macroalgae for display tank

[Nick_Northern]

Hi all,

Hoping to get some advice on the best macroalgae for a new sumpless 55g FOWLR i'm setting up. I want something to create an effect similar to a seagrass lagoon so ideally something that will root into the substrate and that has a very minimal or non-exisitent chance of sporulating and crashing the tank. I'm planning on just running a couple of 39w T5's but could stick a couple more on if required.

The tank will house my coral beauty so the less palatable the better I guess. I like the look of halimeda and pencillus but have read that halimeda seems to have a fairly high chance of sporulating.

There is a company here in the UK that seems to have a pretty decent selection of macroalgae so hopefully there will be something available that meets my requirements

Thanks

Nick

[Subsea]

First that I have heard about Halymenia going sexual. It is a slow growing rigid macro algae. With respect to macro going sexual in a tank, it happens when fast growing macroalgae consume available nutrients and starve. At this point, macro disperses spores into bulk water.

I have many lagoon biotheme with red and green macros contrasted with red and green inverts. Favorite red macros are Dragons Tongue, Red Grapes and Gracilaria Hayi. Favorite green macro is Grape Caulerpa and Caulerpa Prolifera. Prolifera will look like oar sea grass in your substrate. Keep it off your desirable live rock because holdfast are hard to remove and quickly come back. Not so with Grape Caulerpa. It’s holdfast are easily removed.

[Nick_Northern]

Originally Posted by Subsea

First that I have heard about Halymenia going sexual. It is a slow growing rigid macro algae. With respect to macro going sexual in a tank, it happens when fast growing macroalgae consume available nutrients and starve. At this point, macro disperses spores into bulk water.

I have many lagoon biotheme with red and green macros contrasted with red and green inverts. Favorite red macros are Dragons Tongue, Red Grapes and Gracilaria Hayi. Favorite green macro is Grape Caulerpa and Caulerpa Prolifera. Prolifera will look like oar sea grass in your substrate. Keep it off your desirable live rock because holdfast are hard to remove and quickly come back. Not so with Grape Caulerpa. It’s holdfast are easily removed.

Thank you, so is it a case of just keeping growth in check to prevent caulerpa from going sexual, also how much warning do you get? I work away sometimes mid week so would an aggressive pruning prior to leaving be enough to keep it stable for a few days?

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[Subsea]

Yes to both questions.

I grew Caulerpa Prolifera and Caulerpa Paspoides, IMO the most gorgeous of the feather caulerpa, under intense light from 1000W 6500K metal halide in a 150G tank. It looked fantastic and grew like gang busters. My bio load was insufficient for nutrient uptake of thick patches of Caulerpa. With everything looking great to casual observation, I went to bed and woke up 6 hours later to a tank so cloudy, I could not see the back glass. I immediately supplied extra circulation, then aggressively used GAC. Tank water was immaculate in 6 hours, but decaying Caulerpa required removal by hand and vacume. On a later date, I observed telltale signs of Caulerpa Paspoides going sexual. The main stems had enlarged by 40% with white ooze coming from stems. Prior to that eminent sign, a few days earlier, the tips of fronds were white as opposed to translucent