Preserving Algae by Pressing

[piercho]

I read about press-preserving algae in my Reef Plants of Hawaii book. Here are my first attempts at it. I collected a brown, a green, and a red algae from the floating dock at Illahee State Park on Puget Sound in Washington State. I pressed each onto 100-weight art paper. This first one is the brown algae.

 

[piercho]

Here is a closer look at the same algae. I like the symmetry in division of this particular specie.

 

[piercho]

Will post more later. If you've press-presserved algae yourself, feel free to attach them to this thread.

 

[piercho]

I thought this algae was a brown algae when I removed it from the water. After separating out a single frond and pressing it my hunch is its Chlorophyta instead. So I'm calling it a green algae. I found it interesting that such a different algae would be growing right alongside the brown algae posted above, which was much more common.

 

[piercho]

Here is a more detailed picture. This algae has a fairly complex structure that became apparent after pressing. Underwater, and removed from the water, it just looks like a brown-green blob of filamented algae.

 

[piercho]

A more detailed picture. One reason I'm interested in learning how to preserve algae this way is that the specimens can be kept for a long time until I'm better equipt and better educated to be able to identify them.

 

[piercho]

The last and I think the prettiest of the three. This was growing as fairly prostrate clump, looking and feeling like a dark red tube worm plume. Many fronds were growing from a single holdfast. From the clump I carefully separated a single frond. This algae has a red crustracean, probably a specialized grazer, growing at a high density in it. You can see these crustaceans got pressed along with the algae in this picture as they would not let go, even after being stunned by emmersion in fresh water.
This algae was alongside the brown and green algae posted above. All three were growing on a dock float, meaning that they stay submerged the same distance from the surface and are never exposed to air.

 

[piercho]

A detailed picture of the red. I don't know what the blacker colored spots might be, they occur in a regular patten out near the ends of the fronds.

 

[piercho]

Well thats it for now. I've tried the really fleshy algae rockwart and found this method inadequate to preserve it. Really filamented algae without distinct shoots are hard to separate and to get to lay flat and to look like something. Thin algae that grow in large sheets like Ulva have also been tough because if the algae does not adhere uniformly to the paper it will tear and curl up as it dries. I fix the algae with pastel fixatif after pressing and this helps to protect it, but also makes flash shots impossible due to the reflection. So I waited for a sunny day and backlit the specimens to photograph them. 100-weight paper is nice and stiff but does not allow good backlighting. I think try paper in the 45-weight range if I keep this up.

Any comments?

 

[Myrddraal]

Very neat, thanks for sharing that.

 

[3D-Reef]

I think Your doing a fantastic job on this!IDK how much work goes into it,but,I for one would like to see You continue.Maybe in the next photo's You could include some type of scale to judge the size of the algae by.

One question,would these algae servive in a tropical tank?

 

[yrema]

cool! :thumbsup:

 

[Plantbrain]

P-

Try making Xmas cards from the presses.
I show folks how to do this in the Keys(or here I guess), and it works well with the finer species(eg Daysea etc)

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[piercho]

Thanks everyone. I doubt these particular algae would survive a long time at tropical temperatures. I have collected local cool-water algae to feed to tangs and rabbitfish. Those algae could survive several days (they did not melt) in a reef tank until they were removed if they were not grazed.