Flouro Orange Macro, Anyone seen this before?

[Stoney Mahony]

Here are two pics of this Macro I have. I think it is called Halimenia sp., at least that is the best identification I can come up with. Well I rec'd a small leaf of it on a piece of LR a little over a year ago. It died off within a week but the next week, there was a new sprout. Now it is so big I had to build a seperate refugium just to house it. The wierd part is that I changed the lighting to just actinics b/c I blew my other 50/50 bulb and had not gotten another. After about a month of slacking I finally got a new bulb but when I went to change it, I noticed that there was a flourescent orange leaf barely poking out of the bottom. When I turned the macro over, a huge piece, probably an 1/8 of it was flourescent orange! It looks like it had lost all pigment but the orange. Before, just the very tips were a little orange. Just wanted to post some pics and see what everybody thought. Since, I have changed the lighting back to 50/50 and it has changed back to a deep red. Another question, does anybody else have any of this species growing in their tank? Thanks in advace for the replies.

 

[Samala]

It does look like it could be a Halymenia, though not likely the same species I've got growing. The species in my tank is much more fringey at the ends of the fronds, this one is more squared off, blunt. Mine has shown that fluroescent orange color when light stressed, dying, or kept out of light altogether (as with the actinics). Its really cool stuff though, dont you think?

<img border=1 height=300 width=400 src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v285/slardizabal/orange2.jpg">

>Sarah

 

[Stoney Mahony]

Yeah I do , Yours looks really nice, what kind of lighting do you have? Did you buy yours or did it come in on LR? Anybody else have any? I have never see it for sale anywhere. Is this a common macro?

 

[Samala]

I dont know how common it is really. I sweet talked an LFS out of a small colony and it grew and grew and grew. I've got 130w PC 6500K lighting over the tank, which was too much for it at first, but it adapted (those orange parts died back though) and has done well since then. I think Inland Aquatics has had it before, or perhaps now.

>Sarah