ID Algae? --Endocladia muricata?

[Aquatic Aquaman]

I've been trying to identify this algae for about 7 months now. Some people have told me its Caulacanthus ustulatus while others have said Endocladia muricata. I'm no expert but when reading the description of these two it sounds more like Endocladia muricata. Here is a picture of it ignore the circles on the picture since I was pointing out the copods living in it at the time:

When touching the algae if feels kind of tough like a brillo pad. It grows mainly on Rock and as of late has been growing up the side of one of my pumps. Corals that are around it don't seem to be bothered by it as the algea just grows around it on the rock and doesn't seem to grow in the coral itself or in sand. If it starts to over crowd it I just pull some of it off. I'm not sure where the live rock was collected as the whole tank setup was given to me as a complete setup.

Some questions are is this a good algae and is it reef safe? It seems to double in size every month, but its a great breeding ground for my copods.

Any other questions to help identify it since I know red algaes are hard to ID please let me know!

 

[boomsticks]

Those are isopods, completely harmless. Mine breed in little tufts of HA and they eat it as well!

 

[Aquatic Aquaman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11257966#post11257966 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by boomsticks
Those are isopods, completely harmless. Mine breed in little tufts of HA and they eat it as well!

I know those were some sort of isopods or copods i'm trying to figure out what type of red algae they are living in and if that algae is harmful to my tank.

A friend of mine asked what copods looked like so i took that picture of my tank but then I started to wonder about that red algae since I've never really seen anything like it before.

 

[skeeter-doc]

dont know about the red algae, but I do know those are NOT isopods, nor copods, they are called copepods, just an FYI

 

[picassoman]

Looks like gracilaria possibly

 

[LeslieH]

It might be Caulacanthus ustulatus but there are many other species with that general growth form. One thing it's not is Endocladia muricata which has small spinelets covered the branches and is a high intertidal plant from the temperate US coast. And the crustaceans are indeed isopods.

 

[Aquatic Aquaman]

I like the debate on the organisms going on in my picture!

But I was more concerned about what kind of Algea this was. I know its really hard to tell what type it is. But I like all the sugguestion because it gets me tuned to new types that I can research and try to find information on to make a closer match.