Freshwater / Brackish / Saltwater algae and plants

[alextret]

In case of fresh water, algae spores are distributed over air. Even 100% pure fresh water will develop an algae bloom if left standing in the sun for long enough.

Does the same apply to brackish and salt water?

Also, is there a way to get brackish and salt water plants for cheap (e.g., to collect them in the wild somehow)? I mean, legal ones, of course, like the legal oxyweed.

[suphew]

You will get algae in salt water but not the kind you want.

getting seaweed/algae from the 'wild' depends on if you go cold water or tropical, none of the local stuff will last long in warm water. if you want to go cold water it needs to be really cold so to be really sucessful you need a chiller. PLus you will need good lighting to grow most seaweeds. most tropical salt water keepers will happily give you sponges and algae/plants to get you started, also cured live rock normally has 'stuff' growing on it.

[alextret]

Thank you very much for the advice.

>none of the local stuff will last long in warm water.

Indeed, this is an essential point. I did not realize that.

What I have in mind at the moment is not a marine tank, but the possibility to stabilize a low to medium density artemia culture by using an algal scrubber instead of a filter (it looks like filters are difficult to operate with plankters present, because they would filter out artemia, or its food, or both). I got interested in this sort of thing once I found that spirulina powder is readily available. It looks like scrubber can be operated with almost any kind of algae, for as long as it is robust (e.g., blue-greens do just fine).