halimeda care. need advise.

the base is a dark green ans as it goes up it gets lighter green. only two smaller parts are white right now. is that good?

 

That's fine. As a new leaf sprouts, it will pop off the top one that is white. Leave it there and it will become sand. (Not all sand is created by parrotfish, triggers, and puffers eating LR and then pooping out sand. Halimeda is a huge producer of sand).

I'm glad you mentioned this......DON'T PRUNE Halimeda unless one "leaf" is completely white and dead. They don't like it at all. If you want to move some to another tank, wait until it's grown for a while and then rip some out (including holdfasts) from the base.

 

i cant wait to see the pics ;0 how good is halimeda at cleaning the water?

 

It does very well. People sometimes mess up with this species because the like the looks of it and they put it into their display tanks. REMEMBER, FOR MACROALGAES TO BE A NUTRIENT EXPORT, YOU HAVE TO EXPORT SOME OF THE PLANTS......otherwise, it's just temporarily bound inside the cellular material of the plant, but it's still in in your system.

It will take me a few minutes to find some pics of a buddies tank as to why export is necessary, but it will definitely show you why it's important.

 

OK....A CAVEAT FIRST. DON'T FREAK OUT BY WHAT FOLLOWS. THERE'S SIMPLE SOLUTIONS THAT TOM COULD HAVE DONE TO PREVENT THIS.

OK, this is Tom's tank AFTER a 180 gallon waterchange. All of that cloudy water and all the frags that died are due to Halimeda going sexual.




This is why you don't want to continue letting the plants get bigger, and bigger, and bigger until the point that they continue making more babies and starve (become nitrogen, Iron, or Phosphate limited). That will force it to go 'sexual'. If one plant goes sexual, they ALL go sexual.

He was understandably upset and threw a bunch of the sexual Halimeda into the back yard.

 

!!!!!! holy cow! how can i tell that my helamida is going to go sexual? is there any sign?

 

This is easy. I need to find an article by Kirbster. I can only remember his user name and not his real name so be patient while I search for that.

As far as how much is too much, you're right on the money. If you're running 0 to 5 in Nitrates, and you have a 75 gallon, I would highly NOT recommend having 50 different plants. On the other hand, if you're running 50 in Nitrates, let the plants do their job, and then trade off some plants for frags once you start getting real low in Nitrogen.

 

It didn't take as long to find as I thought. This will answer your questions on how the plant visibly changes. Halimeda: The Cactus Algae by Kirby Adams - Reefkeeping.com

AGAIN.....THIS IS NOT SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT.....IF YOU'RE RUNNING VERY LOW NUTRIENTS, DON'T HAVE TONS AND TONS OF THIS PLANT. IT'S MORE OF SOMETHING TO BE AWARE OF.....NOT A WORRY.