- What's up coral people?
My name is Remy, and today's exciting,
because we get to open up this big, beautiful box
of macroalgae for the display tank.
It's about time we give this thing some life.
If you've been following along in this build,
then you have seen this tank go from just an idea
to a full fledged aquarium.
Make sure to go back and check out the last three episodes
in this macroalgae display series,
especially, if you're thinking about starting one
of your own.
Like I said, today is pretty exciting,
because we get to open up this box from Algae Barn,
so let's not waste any more time and see what's inside.
As always, whenever you open up the box,
you get some stickers, and of course,
the individually wrapped Swedish Fish.
Yes, they are back in stock,
and yes, I will enjoy these later.
Well-packaged as usual.
I love the jars that Algae Barn sends all of their pods in
and their macroalgae, that's pretty nice packaging,
and it's also great for reuse
if you ever wanna put frags in here,
or if you ever wanna put macroalgae
to maybe give to a friend or another hobbyist,
these are great for that.
Let's dig into the macroalgae,
and this is what I've never had before,
it's a form of Gracilaria,
which is I think akin to the pom pom macro,
so this one also red in coloration,
but just has a different growth patterns,
so it'll be interesting to see how this one grows out.
One of my personal favorites, blue hypnea,
wow, a plant that's got bluish, greenish,
purple-ish iridescence to it, you've gotta be kidding me,
this isn't a plant, this has to be some sort of coral.
No, it's a macroalgae,
and a really, really cool one at that,
I can't wait for this to grow out in the display tank.
Here we've got a jar of the Red Ogo macro,
this is obviously red in color, kind of a stringy texture.
Here we've got the red pom pom macro,
this is super vibrant red as well,
and grows really, really well in a display tank,
so if you're looking for a solid growing macroalgae,
this is gonna be one that you wanna pick up for sure.
Here's some Caulerpa prolifera,
this is a really cool kind of broad leaf macroalgae,
I've actually got some in my pico tank
that does really well,
so if you want another easy macroalgae,
the prolifera is a good way to go.
Now, here's the fun part,
now that we've unboxed all of this great macroalgae,
let's go ahead and strategically place it in the tank,
and we'll go ahead and try and compliment the rockscape
as much as we possibly can, let's go.
All right, so now we've got all of our macroalgae here
ready to go.
So now it's basically just gonna be assembling
and kinda putting it in place strategically
throughout the tank to make this thing look really good.
I'm kinda doing this off the cuff,
but I do know that right here in this valley,
I wanna keep that clear of any kind of macroalgae,
'cause I really want it to draw your eye
to the center right there.
Let's start off with some of this blue hypnea.
This tends to grow in a bit of a bush,
and I wanna start to fill in this front area down here.
I think I wanna put the Caulerpa in the back.
We want that to stretch out across the back of the tank,
kinda make a curtain back there of green.
All this stuff is gonna eventually settle out,
there's a lot of stuff in the tank right now.
I think I'm gonna stick some of the pom pom
back here as well.
What you can't see from these angles,
you might be able to see it from this angle over here,
the heater is kinda stuck back here,
and I kinda wanna make sure that you can't see that,
macroalgae will do a nice job of covering that up for us.
Let's get some of this Red Ogo in here.
I think this'll look really nice
over on this side of the tank.
All the longer stuff is on this side of the tank so far.
All right, so I do have quite a bit left over,
which is totally fine,
'cause I've got a refugium I can tuck this stuff away from,
I've also got the pico tank
where I can tuck that away as well and use that for later.
But I really think this is a great start,
I love how the pom pom kinda fit in between the rocks,
and the hypnea is gonna be down here in between the rocks,
the Red Ogo, once I get some flow in here,
because that's a piece that I'm missing,
this is gonna be waving,
and same with the Caulerpa in the background,
but I really like the way that this turned out.
The only one that I didn't really have much use for
was the Gracilaria back here, it's just kind of a clump.
(host laughing)
It's just kind of a clump of red vines,
it kinda looks like it doesn't really have
a whole lot of structure to it.
Perfect for a refugium I would imagine,
but I do have it tucked there in the back,
we'll see what it does, maybe it'll cover up some cords,
maybe it'll cover up the heater a little bit more,
but I really like how this came out,
and it looks super clean, can't wait to see it fill in
over the next several months.
Now, that we've placed the macroalgae,
and oh my gosh, this really just brings this tank to life.
Let's go ahead and test the nutrients,
so we kinda know where we're at.
Now, this is a brand new tank,
so it's totally possible we could have zero nitrates
and zero phosphates, but that's okay,
because we can dose those.
Remember that's what macroalgae thrives off of,
nitrates, phosphates, trace elements,
and all of these products are offered by Brightwell,
and are available on the BRS website.
I love NeoNitro, love NeoPhos, I love ChaetoGro,
they're all great products, I use them all,
and they are recommended
by some of the best macroalgae keepers in this hobby.
Now, that I've got these tests results,
I'll go ahead and adjust accordingly,
and just take a step back, look at this thing.
I know it, seems very basic, but the nerd hobbyist in me
thinks that this looks so awesome,
and this is only the beginning.
Now that the algae is in place,
we can start curating a really fun, different looking tank.
We'll eventually enter the world of really cool inverts,
and also some of the lesser kept species in this hobby,
sponges and gorgonians, things like that.
We're so used to everything that thrives
in the blue light and fluoresces,
this is gonna be a totally different tank.
If you've been following this series
or you're getting ready
to start your very own macroalgae display tank,
get ready to have a cool, unique, one of a kind tank
that's gonna impress all of your hobbyist friends,
and hopefully, it impresses you as well.
Just a quick side note,
I raised a couple of clownfish from eggs, Uno and Dos,
you may know them, this will be their new home,
and I'm super excited to introduce them
over the next couple of weeks,
so make sure to check out another installment
of this macroalgae build.
I know I'm gonna have to tie up
a couple loose ends equipment-wise,
and you're gonna wanna be here
when I add those pieces as well.
In the meantime, fill out your tank
with some impressive macroalgae from the link right here,
and I'll catch you in the next one.
(gentle music)