Question about Scinaia appearance

[chammergren]

I was just wondering if somebody could verify for me what Scinaia looks like in its earliest stages. I have what I think is some species of Scinaia growing in my tank.

My tank is only 75 days old and I am not sure if scinaia is really something that shows up early on in tanks or not but based on some research it resembles what I am seeing in my tank. I have read that scinaia is more temperamental when it comes to tank conditions and that it is somewhat fragile but the stuff in my 10 gallon tank seems to be doing just fine growing even though the small volume of water is not extremely stable with the parameters. Also, the holdfast of the stuff in my tank is anything but delicate, it is quite strong. I attempted to pull out one of the buds from the rock and after 30 seconds of trying, it snapped in half without dislodging from the rock.

These things lead me to question what it might be if not some species of Scinaia. It just looks extremely similar in form but I know very little about macro algae. I like the way it looks and am excited to try to continue growing it out but I was just hoping to confirm whether or not it is what I think it is. It does look a bit like Gracilaria (maybe mammillaris?) but what I have is tubular growth, like a balloon animal balloon, and I am under the impression that Gracilaria is flat and blade like.



View attachment 350258

Sorry the pictures aren't the best. The first picture was taken about 5 days ago and the second was taken today so you can see some growth.

Any opinions?

 

[BlueCat1949]

you will know when they grow out a little. Hard to tell right now.

 

[chammergren]

So over the past week I went lights out for about 70 hours to try to help clean up a recurring diatom issue. When I took the cardboard off the outside of the tank and put the lights back on, this macro algae seemed to be just as healthy when I went lights out so I was happy about that.

It looks like as it continues to grow it is just continually forking and branching into two segments. I picked up a couple of Nerite snails and one of them found its way to the area of my rock that has the most growth of this algae but it has left the red algae alone. I wanted to get a turbo but I worried if I did, the red algae would be gone before I knew it.

The tank this is growing in is an Innovative Marine Fusion 10 nano tank so needless to say the water parameters and not perfectly steady so whatever species it is, it must not mind the slight swings. As you can see in the picture the macro is growing in the highest flow area of my tank. It is directly in front of my powerhead (Hydor Koralia 240) and blows around a good deal. I am not sure if these details help in identifying what it is but I thought I would include them regardless.

Either way, I still don't have a definitive idea to what this is but I will post more pictures as it grows and hopefully somebody with more knowledge than I have will be able to ID it eventually!

 

[chammergren]

Another week of growth another picture! Still hoping somebody will be able to identify it eventually!

 

[mzkrista]

Looks like red hex to me. It's beautiful when it grows out. Don't get rid of it. It's defiantly not scnaia

 

[chammergren]

Looks like red hex to me. It's beautiful when it grows out. Don't get rid of it. It's defiantly not scnaia

You are right, there are a couple of pictures on google images that look very similar. I can't find any detailed information about it though, does anyone know the scientific name for red hex?

I would be thrilled if it turned out like some of the pictures on google images!
Here are the pictures taken each of the last 4 Saturdays of my growth.

 

[mzkrista]

Looking good! I have it and it's absolutely gorgeous

 

[chammergren]

The growth has slowed quite a bit but it is still looking healthy!