Animal, vegetable or mineral??

[Alfish]

Well, I know it’s not mineral. This gorgeous underwater “rose” appeared miraculously in my tank within the last few months. As you can see from the photo, my Maroon Clown has claimed it as its surrogate anemone. I have not added anything new to the tank in quite a while. Any ideas?

 

[Anonymous]

Looks to me like a red macro algae. I had some but my tang ate it.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Looks like a red macro to me too. Halymenia sp. maybe. http://www.saltcorner.com/sections/gues ... ymenia.htm

 

[Anonymous]

I vote for macro too. Its kinda cool - looks good enough to eat!

 

[Anonymous]

red algae. Put a tang in the tank, and the clown will lost its house.

 

[Alfish]

Thanks all. I guess that it's your basic Rhodophyta tropical red algae species. I did find some photos online that were pretty close to the one in my tank. I've had everything from sargassum to halimeda (not to mention several species of caulerpa) but never anything as beautiful as this.