Algae ID growing from rocks red... sticks?

[cristata.reef]

Sponges are transparent since they are made largely out of a collagen-based substance called spongin

whoops mis-typed *not transparent. These are chlorophytes for sure.

 

[starypotter]

whoops mis-typed *not transparent. These are chlorophytes for sure.

So I've found a couple other threads about Cladophora and it seems to be pretty bad huh? Back to finding something with some solid choppers to take care of it?

 

[cristata.reef]

So I've found a couple other threads about Cladophora and it seems to be pretty bad huh? Back to finding something with some solid choppers to take care of it?

Yeah cladophora is a type of "scouring" algae that semi-encrusts along a substrate and makes it really hard to remove (kinda like velcro). Cladophoropsis on the hand should attaches via a stipe and holdfast if I'm not mistaken. As a general rule of thumb I like to use biological control (i.e. clean up crews) before resorting to chemical alternatives, so yes maybe an emerald crab or an urchin

 

[reefcleaners]

I can't believe how different the whole tank looks without the light on. I have a bulb clamped on to the tank since it's my coral QT so nothing fancy, and my mom always flicks the light on in the morning before I wake up, and I turn it off after it's dark so I never noticed just how different it looks in there with natural lights only!
The algae wasn't red at all, I feel like I've been bamboozled It's thicker than any sort of GHA and holds it's shape out of water

You have multiple species in that picture. there is a turf algae, as well as the cylindrical globular algae. The cylindrical algae looks like Valonia fastiagata, (excuse my spelling), but I don't think it is that particular species. (Your species is too thin) There are many cylindrical globular green algae like that, they all basically all fall victim to the same grazer - the emerald crab.

 

[starypotter]

You have multiple species in that picture. there is a turf algae, as well as the cylindrical globular algae. The cylindrical algae looks like Valonia fastiagata, (excuse my spelling), but I don't think it is that particular species. (Your species is too thin) There are many cylindrical globular green algae like that, they all basically all fall victim to the same grazer - the emerald crab.

That sounds good, do you think an urchin would be a good candidate as well? I have an itty bitty pistol shrimp in there, and I'm not very trusting of crabs, a few of my wild caught ones killed things so I'm a bit gun shy. Is it pretty safe to say that an emerald would be well behaved? I'm likely going to get an urchin anyway because I really like them so if they'd be able to handle this too that would be great.

 

[starypotter]

Yeah cladophora is a type of "scouring" algae that semi-encrusts along a substrate and makes it really hard to remove (kinda like velcro). Cladophoropsis on the hand should attaches via a stipe and holdfast if I'm not mistaken. As a general rule of thumb I like to use biological control (i.e. clean up crews) before resorting to chemical alternatives, so yes maybe an emerald crab or an urchin

That's great! I was hoping to place a reef cleaners order but I'm going to wait for them to have more of a variety of the express shipping things I want, urchins specifically.