Codium decorticatum Care Guide
Codium decorticatum is a robust, dichotomously branched marine green alga with a spongy texture, an ornamental species for advanced reef refugiums.
Overview
Codium decorticatum (Woodward) M.A.Howe, 1911 is a green macroalga commonly called dead man's fingers. The genus Codium is coenocytic and siphonous: the thallus is built from a single, multinucleate, branched tubular cell (siphon) ending in swollen tips called utricles. The spongy body has a mesh-like medulla surrounded by a palisade cortex of utricles.
Taxonomy
- Family: Codiaceae
- Genus: Codium
- Scientific name: Codium decorticatum (Woodward) M.A.Howe, 1911
- Class: Ulvophyceae; Order: Bryopsidales
- WoRMS AphiaID: 145083 (accepted)
Habitat
Codium decorticatum is an Atlantic species, recorded from North Carolina southwards in the northwest Atlantic. It grows upright from rock as a diffusely, dichotomously branched dark green alga, with the genus occupying habitats from the intertidal zone down into the subtidal.
Morphology
The thallus is firm and spongy with cylindrical segments that fork into two roughly equal branches at each division. The genus generally forms erect, dichotomously branched fronds reaching up to several tens of centimetres tall, which gives the dark, finger-like appearance behind the common name.
Tank requirements
- Water type: saltwater (marine)
- Temperature: 20-26 °C (68-79 °F)
- pH: 8.0-8.4
- GH reference: 8-12 °dGH
- Lighting: medium
- CO2 injection: not required
- Growth rate: slow; height up to ~30 cm
Care and propagation
As a slow grower, Codium decorticatum is treated as an ornamental display alga rather than a primary nutrient-export macroalga, and is regarded as more demanding than fast-growing greens. The genus can spread vegetatively through fragmentation, so divisions can be used for propagation. Infrequent trimming, roughly monthly, is usually sufficient.