saltwater newbie attempting a 55 gallon reef

[mr.reef24]

my favorite poweheads are Tunze and the eco-vortech but very pricey thats what adds up my bill.

mr.reef24

 

[BTB0923]

A kinda interesting thing happened in my refugium sometime last week....the asterina starfish I have in there decided to split in two. You can already see new legs growing where the split occurred. I attached a pic that shows the two halves.

I've also had a lot of growth occurring in my display tank, corals and otherwise. I'm hoping someone can help me identify some of this stuff. I'm pretty sure its different kinds of macroalgae, but I'd like to know if its beneficial or bad.

I think the green in pic 2 is probably hair algae, but what is the red stuff?

Also, there is a blue/purple kind of plant growing out of one of my zoanthid colonies (pics 3 and 4). A cool thing about those two pics is that you can see the differernce in color of the zoas tenticles when all the lights are on (pic 3) and just the actinics are on (pic 4).

Anyways, the plant in pics 3 and 4 is growing really quickly. Anybody know what its called?

My paly colony has sprouted a third head which is pretty cool. It appeared and got as big as you can see in pic 5 in just a matter of three days. Its the small one in between the other two larger ones.

 

[Otto_VonBacon]

Your tank is looking great.

 

[BTB0923]

Thanks Otto! Do you know the names of any of the plants I posted pics of?

 

[Otto_VonBacon]

Not a clue. Think I have some of that red stuff though.

 

[BTB0923]

I actually kinda like the way that red stuff looks, but its growing around my hammer coral. I've been pulling clumps of it out and throwing it away.

 

[syndicate]

nice job man just read the whole thread

ive been thinking about turning my 4 x 2 x 2.5high into a reef

 

[mr.reef24]

hmm you can try this site for identification of pest, predators, and nuisance organism's

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchhikers.html

as far as the macro algae growing I'll have to dig into some research for you.

mr.reef24

 

[BTB0923]

nice job man just read the whole thread

ive been thinking about turning my 4 x 2 x 2.5high into a reef

Thanks! Thats a good size for a reef tank, you should do it.

hmm you can try this site for identification of pest, predators, and nuisance organism's

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchhikers.html

as far as the macro algae growing I'll have to dig into some research for you.

mr.reef24

Thanks for the link mr.reef

 

[mr.reef24]

no problem still looking for ID on the macro can you describe more about it?

mr.reef24