New article about "brackish tolerant plants"

[Super Jess]

The difficulty in selling this plant is that it needs to sent attached to a rock as the *only* part that grows and reproduces is the very bottom of the part that is attached to a surface. You can't just pluck the plant off of a rock and send it...it will hang in there for a short while and then die without reproducing. The other option would be to send the part of the plant that produces spores and then hope for the best...but that's not sustainable as an option. Finally, since the plant is so fragile, it's difficult to ship...especially with a rock attached to it. The rock may roll all over the plant during transport by USPS and the customer may receive a bunch of fragments instead of a whole plant.

How about a "local pickup only" option?

[Arnold]

Another interesting Algae that can handle brackish its the Ulva genus, some species even can be found in pure freshwater with no problems. Specialy species like Ulva prolifera, Ulva intestinalis, etcc who were in the Enteromorpha genus.

[Mustafa]

How about a "local pickup only" option?

Has proven to be *way* too much trouble in the past (coordination). Maybe I'll have "local delivery" at some point.

[Mustafa]

Another interesting Algae that can handle brackish its the Ulva genus, some species even can be found in pure freshwater with no problems. Specialy species like Ulva prolifera, Ulva intestinalis, etcc who were in the Enteromorpha genus.

There are definitely quite a few species out there that could *potentially* be suitable for Supershrimp tanks. However, all the Ulva I have tried so far died off sooner or later. Some lasted months before disintegrating but never grew. I used various Ulva spp. from both the ocean and brackish areas of river deltas....no luck so far.

[Super Jess]

Maybe I'll have "local delivery" at some point.

Sign me up! Plus I'll throw in a great lunch

[DN1]

is there a range of salinity these plants are fine with? What's the ideal number, lowest and highest they can survive in?

[Arnold]

They are marine species of macroalgae the highest is the pure ocean salinity and the lowest it change with the species, some even can survive in freshwater but I think the majority do the best around half salinity of saltwater, some species will stop growing if you drop to much the salinity

[Mustafa]

They are marine species of macroalgae the highest is the pure ocean salinity and the lowest it change with the species, some even can survive in freshwater but I think the majority do the best around half salinity of saltwater, some species will stop growing if you drop to much the salinity

Not so sure about that. I have tried LOTS of marine macroalgae in half ocean salinity and almost all don't survive. I'm sure I haven't tried all species, but I wouldn't go as far as saying "the majority do best at around half....(ocean salinity)". Also, very few truly marine macroalgae grow in freshwater. Even supershrimp macroalgae sold here (a species of Chaetomorpha) doesn't grow at all in full freshwater and dies off even though it does fine in "almost" freshwater low brackish conditions.

[Mustafa]

is there a range of salinity these plants are fine with? What's the ideal number, lowest and highest they can survive in?

There doesn't appear to be an "ideal". It's always a range from low to high brackish. The ones suitable for supershrimp tanks do great at the salinity range appropriate for supershrimp (given on this site).

[Arnold]

Yes Mustafa you are right, I didnt put it correcty (english is not my mother language sorry) I was speaking about the macroalgae that are know to handle the brackish conditions and live in estuarys or brackish seas like the Baltic sea not all the macroalgae, the majority of marine macroalgae will not grow or die in the half of the ocean salinity and even less will survive without water circulation and fertilization. The few species that I know of marine macroalgae that can live in freshwater are Ulva flexuosa/intestinalis formerly in Enteromorpha genus, and also very few species of Cladophora can be found in marine and freshwater but its very rare to find marine macroalgae that can live in freshwater

[QsusieQ]

I remember you posting that! Wonder what happened. I'd love to order some from Mustafa if he's managed to get it going. I'm sure he's just making sure it's long-term tested.

The difficulty in selling this plant is that it needs to sent attached to a rock as the *only* part that grows and reproduces is the very bottom of the part that is attached to a surface. You can't just pluck the plant off of a rock and send it...it will hang in there for a short while and then die without reproducing. The other option would be to send the part of the plant that produces spores and then hope for the best...but that's not sustainable as an option. Finally, since the plant is so fragile, it's difficult to ship...especially with a rock attached to it. The rock may roll all over the plant during transport by USPS and the customer may receive a bunch of fragments instead of a whole plant.

As far as transport goes, this is just an idea: In Jason’s original post, he mentioned “... it has already popped up in my new tank despite neither tank having ever shared any of the objects that are in either one of them. My guess is that I inadvertently transferred it over when netting the shrimp out of the older tank and into the newer. It could very well have been in the water on the net...”

SoOo, rather than selling the plant attached to a rock, would a small bag of water full of the spores aka “flowers” be possible? Then it can self seed in it’s new home and grow.

Can this possibility be layered on to the experimenting?
It may be a stretch- whether it’s even possible, if it does- averages of plants produced per water volume, whether spores can survive in a bag for a few days while being transported, etc...
But if it could work, that would be an amazing little plant to have

[Aennedry]

I have a new form of algae in my tank, showed up about a year ago. Very slow growing. It is growing at the base of one of my small lava rock mountains. It has a very fine texture. Don't know where it came from, my tank has had no contact with any actual sea life. But there it is. It is small, shrimps on the rock above it give a good size comparison. And yes, crappy cell phone photo.
=^._.^=

[Mustafa]

Yes Mustafa you are right, I didnt put it correcty (english is not my mother language sorry) I was speaking about the macroalgae that are know to handle the brackish conditions and live in estuarys or brackish seas like the Baltic sea not all the macroalgae, the majority of marine macroalgae will not grow or die in the half of the ocean salinity and even less will survive without water circulation and fertilization. The few species that I know of marine macroalgae that can live in freshwater are Ulva flexuosa/intestinalis formerly in Enteromorpha genus, and also very few species of Cladophora can be found in marine and freshwater but its very rare to find marine macroalgae that can live in freshwater

Got it. No problem at all.

[Mustafa]

As far as transport goes, this is just an idea: In Jason’s original post, he mentioned “... it has already popped up in my new tank despite neither tank having ever shared any of the objects that are in either one of them. My guess is that I inadvertently transferred it over when netting the shrimp out of the older tank and into the newer. It could very well have been in the water on the net...”

SoOo, rather than selling the plant attached to a rock, would a small bag of water full of the spores aka “flowers” be possible? Then it can self seed in it’s new home and grow.

Can this possibility be layered on to the experimenting?
It may be a stretch- whether it’s even possible, if it does- averages of plants produced per water volume, whether spores can survive in a bag for a few days while being transported, etc...
But if it could work, that would be an amazing little plant to have

Of course I can look into that, BUT , imagine customers getting a bag full of water and then *nothing* grows after adding it to their tanks. Just imagine the angry emails I would get ("I PAID FOR JUST A BAG OF WATER???"). Just taking water out of a tank with this plant would definitely not work consistently. You would have to have the right timing for taking out some water at the exact time when spores are released to get close to consistent results. . Very, very difficult. But maybe I could explore sending spores or plants attached to really large sand particles or really small gravel particles...i.e. substrate that won't roll all over the plant and shred it into pieces. We'll see. In the meantime I am seeding other tanks with this plant just in case I can figure out a way to send it.

[Mustafa]

I have a new form of algae in my tank, showed up about a year ago. Very slow growing. It is growing at the base of one of my small lava rock mountains. It has a very fine texture. Don't know where it came from, my tank has had no contact with any actual sea life. But there it is. It is small, shrimps on the rock above it give a good size comparison. And yes, crappy cell phone photo.
=^._.^=

That appears to be some type of sessile hair algae ("filamentous algae"). How is it doing? Usually these things appear from spores in the environment and can either stay short like that or grow really long and resemble the pest hair algae that entraps our shrimp. How is it doing? Did it get any bigger? Did any other ones pop up?