What type of Algae is this? Pictures

[BlennyBabe]

This brown algae has been growing on a piece of live rock for the past few weeks.

http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/2775/september20050033zv.jpg

Any guesses as to what it is? Its rough in texture.

[piercho]

Appears to be a Sargassum, although I don't see any clusters of round spheres around the branches. If it is a Sargassum, it will grow up from a holdfast and be bouyant in the water. I've let Sargassum grow from the rock all the way up to the top of my tank in the past. To harvest, just snap off the mainstem above the holdfast. You can also grow fragments of Sargassum by floating it in the sump. A good algae IME, not grazed by most things we keep, resistent to filamentous algae overgrowth, doesn't spread across the rock like Dictyota or Caulerpa, and easy to harvest. Can grow really fast under high light intensity.

[sylphid]

Sargassum+1