Halymenia or dragons breath red algae, reproducing.

This local red algae species operates with its asexual function quite similar to land plants that reproduce by making more bulbs beneath the soil, in this case its beneath the sea.
If you look closely at the second pic, sorry the pic is not real clear, you can see the pink base of the algae quite undulated in shape, each sort of lump is a new bulb ready to separate from the mass to form its own of foliage.
This is because I let the tanks temp reach above 24c, this is the cut off point for this algae's life cycle.
What that means is its becoming to hot to survive easily so it multiplies or spores like most marine algae will do, so it would have dropped all of its foliage and sat in wait for cooler water as in next season and then the sections separate and at timers will let go and be washed elsewhere and then there is multiple plants.
If at home you want more of this species you take off the pink base and cut the sections and set them in gaps here and there, they are toxic to life so no algae eaters will take them before the new growth arrives, this will give you multiple halymenia algae plants.
3 months ago this was only one potential bulb, now I can see 5 to 7, oh these guys need constant human grade iron dosed for them along with mag and calcium of course.


close up