Ulva australis

[mr_miagi32]

I have access to Ulva australis, but apart from hermits riping it to shreds, which I could easily stop, how do you encourage this stuff to grow over rock work? Any requirements? Lighting, flow? Does anyone know links to people culturing it? Cheers, Ben.

 

[Macroculture]

These days Ulva australis is considered to be a synonym of Ulva rigida. The type specimen in the Herbarium in Stockholm, Sweden shows enough similarity to U. rigida to be considered the same species. However, U. australis does have some minor differences that may have to do with local variation. I have had a lot of experience with U. rigida that I would be happy to share if you were interested.

 

[mr_miagi32]

Deffinately interested in the info. Macroculture, my text book at hand only had the one sp. and doesnt go into high levels of detail, I need to buy some better algal/macro identification books!

 

[Macroculture]

One of the best macroalgae ID books I have found is Caribbean Reef Plants; An Identification Guide to the Reef Plants of the Caribbean, Bahamas, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico by Diane and Mark Littler. The ISBN # is 0967890101. Hard to find and a bit expensive, but very well worth it. It does only cover the Tropical Atlantic and Caribbean but it goes into such detail you can narrow down Pacific and Indian Ocean Tropical macroalgae to genus and even species from this book. My experience with U. rigida and other Ulva has led me to believe that they like high light, high flow, and high nutrient levels to spread fast on hard substrate. Ulva will grow under a lot of different lighting intensities, but high niutuent levels are the key to maximum growth. If you have a tank full of big fish or other macroalgae, than having high Nitrate and Phosphate levels is not a bad option. Howeve, if you have delicate fish or corals, you won't want so much Nitrate and Phosphate in the tank. If you let me know a basic rundown of your setup, just lighting and tank inhabitants should be fine, I can tell you what your best bet for growing Ulva in your system is.

 

[mr_miagi32]

Ive got two tanks. One is a Reef, so I wont be adding any Nitrate or Phosphate and I dont add the Ulva sp. into it.

My other tank is FOWLR, and recieves the collected Ulva. Its got one 30W 14,000K flouro on it ATM with 30x turnover, with a pair of Barrier Reef Clowns (A. Akinynos) and 4 Blue Green Chromis. The tank is also skimmer-less, and I do not have a sump/refugium, so I realise this might be difficult, but I deffinately want to attempt to grow it when I do get my sump/fuge for this tank.

 

[Macroculture]

Getting the Ulva to attach to the Live Rock is the hard part. If you can collect some of the holdfast you can glue it to the live rock with Super Glue gel or coral glue. The more lighting the better, but what you have should be good to start, just try to collect the Ulva that is growing deeper so it will be used to lower light levels. Place it somewhere that gets good flow, Ulva tends to spread with the flow of the water. A skimmerless tank is better for growing Ulva. If you have a low level of Nitrate in your tank you may not need to supplement with additional Nitrate. Just keep an eye out and when it starts to get too low it may be time to supplement. The growth of the Ulva will tell you when it is time to add Nitrate or Phosphate. In the beginning it takes Ulva a while to get used to the tank, so don't expect too much growth for the first month or so. If you can find any oyster shell, the outside of the shell servs great to stimulate Ulva growth. The holdfast and basal cell region seems to like to attach to oyster shell.

 

[mr_miagi32]

Thanks very much for your help Macroculture, im deffinately going to try this! I should get out collecting again next week, so Ill look forward to seeing how it goes!