Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
Moderator: Mustafa
- JasonG3333
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Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
By "discover" I mean it's the first time I'VE ever seen it, not that I'm the first person to have ever come across it, obviously. I set up my first tank when I freed my 2 Ecosphere shrimp this past October, and I first noticed this plant beginning to grow around that same time in a small 3-gallon Opae Ula tank I happened across in an aquarium shop here in San Diego. Turns out Mustafa had sold the shop those shrimp (and snails - and I assume he set up the tank for them as well) so that they could have them as part of their animal inventory. I've dropped by that shop periodically ever since for supplies and to check on that tank (have even bought a few snails and shrimp from it), and I noticed that this awesome-looking mystery plant was beginning to grow and spread throughout the tank. I asked a clerk there if Mustafa had intentionally placed that plant in there when the tank was set up, and he said no, that the plant just appeared out of nowhere one day and began to grow. (Btw, this tank has no macroalgae or any other foliage). If I recall correctly, they told me that Mustafa had been by since the plant began growing and saw it, so he is aware of it being in there (correct me I'm mistaken on any of this, Mustafa, if you see this post). I talked the guy I was speaking with into selling me a piece coral in the tank that had a nice little "grove" of the plant growing on it. At this point, the stuff was fairly spread throughout the tank, so he was ok with letting go of a cluster of it. Here's what it looked like about a month after I first brought it home this past March...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 05.JPG
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 06.JPG
Here's what it looks like now in my tank...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 07.JPG
As can be seen, the original cluster has grown a lot in only about 4 months, and is beginning to spread throughout the tank. At first I thought it was encouraged to "root" in porous surfaces, hence the growth on the coral and other rough surfaces in the shop tank. But then I noticed it was actually rooting anywhere there was sufficient algae growth, whether the surface was porous or not, even on the smooth glass marbles I have in there. Here's a macro photo I took (using an Olloclip on my iPhone) of the base of one the stalks where you can see it growing out of the algae on the fairly smooth surface of a shell...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 08.JPG
Here's a recent photo of the tank in the aquarium shop where the stuff has gone crazy recently...!
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 09.JPG
As you can see, each branch eventually "flowers" (see the little green "balls" in the above photos?), and then that branch subsequently falls over and dies. Here's a close up of a flowered branch beginning to die...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 10.JPG
I was curious if anyone knew what this plant was, both the common and scientific name. I'm especially curious since it grew from seemingly nothing and it seems to flourish in brackish water. Assuming anyone is actually familiar with this plant, I also wanted to know if there is any danger of upsetting the balance of my tank in any way now that I've introduced it. The animals in the shop tank and my tank seem to be doing fine with it thus far, but I was wondering more about any potential long-term issues such as the plant using up all the nutrients in the water so that the tank is unable to sustain sufficient algae growth for the shrimp and snails to continue to have enough to eat. It does seem that my algae growth has dropped since I introduced it, but at the same time, my house has no AC or heat, and it has become a bit warm (often 80 to 84 degrees in the tank) with the onset of summer. So, that also could be affecting algae growth as well since plants (and the animals?) prefer relatively cooler water due to it being able to hold more oxygen than warm (i think - right?).
Thanks in advance for any info you might have...!
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 05.JPG
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 06.JPG
Here's what it looks like now in my tank...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 07.JPG
As can be seen, the original cluster has grown a lot in only about 4 months, and is beginning to spread throughout the tank. At first I thought it was encouraged to "root" in porous surfaces, hence the growth on the coral and other rough surfaces in the shop tank. But then I noticed it was actually rooting anywhere there was sufficient algae growth, whether the surface was porous or not, even on the smooth glass marbles I have in there. Here's a macro photo I took (using an Olloclip on my iPhone) of the base of one the stalks where you can see it growing out of the algae on the fairly smooth surface of a shell...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 08.JPG
Here's a recent photo of the tank in the aquarium shop where the stuff has gone crazy recently...!
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 09.JPG
As you can see, each branch eventually "flowers" (see the little green "balls" in the above photos?), and then that branch subsequently falls over and dies. Here's a close up of a flowered branch beginning to die...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 10.JPG
I was curious if anyone knew what this plant was, both the common and scientific name. I'm especially curious since it grew from seemingly nothing and it seems to flourish in brackish water. Assuming anyone is actually familiar with this plant, I also wanted to know if there is any danger of upsetting the balance of my tank in any way now that I've introduced it. The animals in the shop tank and my tank seem to be doing fine with it thus far, but I was wondering more about any potential long-term issues such as the plant using up all the nutrients in the water so that the tank is unable to sustain sufficient algae growth for the shrimp and snails to continue to have enough to eat. It does seem that my algae growth has dropped since I introduced it, but at the same time, my house has no AC or heat, and it has become a bit warm (often 80 to 84 degrees in the tank) with the onset of summer. So, that also could be affecting algae growth as well since plants (and the animals?) prefer relatively cooler water due to it being able to hold more oxygen than warm (i think - right?).
Thanks in advance for any info you might have...!
Last edited by JasonG3333 on Sat Aug 02, 2014 1:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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- Senior Shrimp Master
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Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
I have no clue what it is but looks interesting. Only concern is its rate of growth. Looks like it could take over.
Ken
Ken
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Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
jason those plants look familar. I seem to remember the pictures. Do they still exist?
Ken
Ken
Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
I got a sprig of this from a local pet store (who is actually selling my shrimp) twice already and for some reason it just dies off in my tanks. Maybe my salinity is not high enough as this is normally a marine organism. I had found out the actual name of it, but forgot...maybe I can go search for it again. If I find it I'll post it here. It's really nice looking...but possibly not viable in lower salinity tanks.
Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
I think this is a Charophyta alga, maybe Nitella or Chara species, some are known as brackish even if the majority are freshwater. do they smell garlic when crushed?
- JasonG3333
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Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
Yes, the plants are still going strong. You were the only one who commented when I first posted it, before having to re-post the photos recently, so you are most likely recalling seeing the photos back then. I'm about to post an update with more photos.KenCotigirl wrote:jason those plants look familar. I seem to remember the pictures. Do they still exist?
Ken
Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
Interesting plant!JasonG3333 wrote:Yes, the plants are still going strong. You were the only one who commented when I first posted it, before having to re-post the photos recently, so you are most likely recalling seeing the photos back then. I'm about to post an update with more photos.KenCotigirl wrote:jason those plants look familar. I seem to remember the pictures. Do they still exist?
Ken
- JasonG3333
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Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
In my initial post, I wrote "I asked a clerk there if Mustafa had intentionally placed that plant in there when the tank was set up, and he said no, that the plant just appeared out of nowhere one day and began to grow. (Btw, this tank has no macroalgae or any other foliage). If I recall correctly, they told me that Mustafa had been by since the plant began growing and saw it, so he is aware of it being in there (correct me I'm mistaken on any of this, Mustafa, if you see this post)." SO, you obviously did not read my initial post before commenting which is completely irresponsible, especially for a forum administrator. How dare you, sir. As mentioned, I got my sprig from that same tank at Aquatic Warehouse, and it definitely went nuts and flourished. And even though the first round of growth eventually started dying off after flowering (as many plants do), a new round of growth was already on it's way to replace it. I actually keep my salinity more on the low end of the brackish range - even after some significant evaporation, the salinity is around 1.010 (so even less when fully topped off). Here are some updates...Mustafa wrote:I got a sprig of this from a local pet store (who is actually selling my shrimp) twice already and for some reason it just dies off in my tanks. Maybe my salinity is not high enough as this is normally a marine organism. I had found out the actual name of it, but forgot...maybe I can go search for it again. If I find it I'll post it here. It's really nice looking...but possibly not viable in lower salinity tanks.
These 2 photos are from about 4 months ago. It spread throughout the tank, and as can be seen, the original growth began dying, but not until about a year after I put that initial clump in there. In the 2nd photo taken from behind the tank, you can see the new growth on its way in to replace the older growth...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 18.JPG
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 16.JPG
And here's a photo, also taken about 4 months ago, of the shop tank that you and I got our sprigs from. Still doing quite well in there...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 12.JPG
As mentioned in my initial post, the shop was not selling this stuff, and i had to talk the clerk into selling me some. Now, they are actively selling it, and the advertising they stuck to the front of the tank even provides a supposed name for the plant: Bladderwort
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 11.JPG
So far, when I google any of the possible names I've been presented with thus far (Bladderwort, Charophyta alga, Nitella alga, Chara alga), I have not found a single image of this particular species. Many of those plants resemble this plant, like they may indeed at least be of the same genus, but no image has yet surfaced that is this plant. As you mentioned, please post the name you came across once upon a time, if you can find it again. If no one can identify it fairly soon, then there will be no other choice but to name after me: Jasonwort!
Here are a few photos of the the current state of my tank showing the new round of growth that has taken over...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 21.JPG
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 22.JPG
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 23.JPG
I also took some close-up photos of the "flowers", and as can be seen, there are what seem to be very tiny (can't be seen without a macro lens) spherical seeds within the larger pods that form. After I discovered that, I was like "so that's how this thing gets from one spot in the tank to all over the place!" Those seed pods fall over, decompose, and must leave those tiny seeds all over the place. Definitely a beautiful plant, though...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 14.jpg
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 19.jpg
The sprigs and flowers are even reddish-orange sometimes...
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 20.JPG
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 17.JPG
The snails seem to like it - dead or alive (the plant, not the snails), they're usually all over this stuff chomping away. It becomes fairly aggressive, once it gets going. My ball of macroalgae even died after a while following introducing the new plant, although that macroalgae was fairly old by then, so it may have been due to other factors. You can see in the very first photo from my original post above how healthy it is. Then, in the 2nd photo included in this reply (the one taken from behind the tank), in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo, you can see the macroalgae struggling, nearing its end.
This tank is actually in the midst of being decommissioned, and so, there are currently nothing in there but snails, and a lot of them! All 22 of the shrimp (and only 5 snails) have already been moved to a new-and-improved tank I recently set up. But I may hold onto the older tank for a while longer just to keep this plant going. Although, that may now not even be necessary since 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. I want to prevent it from completely taking over in the new tank, though, so I may periodically go in there and do some landscaping and actually pick some of it out of there (what I can reach, anyway). As soon as I get a chance, I will post a photo of this stuff developing in my new tank.
Hopefully, we'll have this bad boy identified soon! Thanks for the effort thus far...!
Jae Senji hawaiian red shrimp opae ula 15.jpg
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Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
Nice close up pictures! While i like to have a piece or two they appear to grow very fast. Being lazy i prefer slow growers so i need to do very little trimming.
Ken
Ken
Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
For me there is obviously those giant cells found in algae, so it's not a bladderwort (there is some marine and brackish ones, but they have plant like structure), but an algae. The spheres looks more like charophyta oospore than bladderworth plancton traps. I think the green ones are immature female/male sex organs and the yellow ones are mature oospore. Can you please look at some yellow ones in the microscope? Charophytes' oospore have a spiral shaped calcium coat like this:
Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
Thanks for the update Jason! Ok, sometimes I do miss some info (like your low salinity water) when I go through 500 (ok...maybe not so many) messages at a time. In any case, I've fixed your first post and I'll try to remember to look up again what this plant is. I did identify it at some point. I swear!
- JasonG3333
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Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
Thanks for fixing the photos!Mustafa wrote:Thanks for the update Jason! Ok, sometimes I do miss some info (like your low salinity water) when I go through 500 (ok...maybe not so many) messages at a time. In any case, I've fixed your first post and I'll try to remember to look up again what this plant is. I did identify it at some point. I swear!
- JasonG3333
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Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
Performed your garlic test on a sprig - no garlic smell whatsoever.Stalker wrote:I think this is a Charophyta alga, maybe Nitella or Chara species, some are known as brackish even if the majority are freshwater. do they smell garlic when crushed?
Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
No, it's not Nitella or Chara for sure. Still haven't been able to find it. I remember it took hours of research, too.
- jonesinfershrimp
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Re: Discovered A New Brackish Water Plant!
id love to get some of this! i wonder it if can grow in FW?