[Delphinus]

I have yet to see a pod pile that rivals a big ol' bunch of algae for housing various little critters.

I removed a 6" ball of valonia yesterday from my tank. I spent three hours breaking it into little pieces, and tweezering out worms, brittle stars, and copepods, and snails. I filled a 2 litre bucket many times over (lost count) full of the stuff I was saving from the big porcelain reef in the sky ... er ... bathroom.

Same story with the sargassum .... it's less insidious than caulerpa or valonia, looks nicer (I think), and seems to be total pod/brittle star/etc. farm.

So ... moral of the story is, I beleive it's not all bad, not all the time, anyways.

I just wish I didn't have all this crap in my main display tank. I remove pounds of it weekly. I can only give it away so many times before everyone I know has more than they want ... I don't have a refugium on this tank, probably won't ever because it won't fit in the overall scheme of things. Oh well.