Dragon's Breath Macroalgae! Good for Aquariums, Great for SCIENCE!

hi teras pin here and I'm back at the Top Shop Aquatics farm and I'm in one of my favorite places here at the farm I'm in one of the refugiums of slim jim and in this wonderful refugium is one of the macro alies that I first saw when I joined here at the TSA team it's helenia our dragon's breath now I wear a lot of hats here at the farm I look into do a lot of things but one of my favorite aspects of my job is being able to take all the different Critters in our tanks corals the fish the invertebrates the macroalgae I love being able to take all these Critters and get to research them in my spare time mostly this is because we want to figure out how to keep them healthy how to grow them quicker but you go down all these rabbit holes especially when I find myself up late at night with a cup of coffee going through Google Scholar and I've typed in a list of all of our favorite macroalgae and you'd be shocked how many of these rabbit holes reveal wonderful stories each one of these Critters be it a coral a fish they're not just that they objects swimming around in your tank looking nice each one is a species an individual organism with a story and when it comes to the macroalga we will be talking today it's a story of incredible hope and incredible potential when it comes to all the things that this particular species of seaweed can do for Humanity both in and outside of our Reef aquariums So today we're going to be doing a species Spotlight on the halania genus of red mael we're going to be going over all the various things that it does to benefit the reap aquarium as a functional organism in our tanks and all the things that have been done with it by humans for benefit over historic history and also some wonderful groundbreaking research which is being done in the biomedical field when it comes to applying the various compounds created by this Majestic dragon's breath red algae so welcome we'll be discussing for the rest of this episode halenia dragons macro algae the genus of hamia red macro algae is located in semi-tropical and temperate Waters worldwide but specifically the mamania that we refer to in the hobby as dragon's breath is pretty much located around Hawaiian archipelago radiating out towards the Indo Pacific and then radiating even farther towards the Indian Ocean this is halenia dereli and several other tropical members of this genus that live essentially in the shadows of wild coral reefs they live in the shallow seas and sand Flats outside radiating from these wild coral reefs and they basically enjoy a constant flux of both some nutrients from the land and also nutrients radiating from the coral reef itself so it's in this environment that's relatively clean water high levels of light and still a constant supply of nutrients that this Majestic red algae thrives and it's this wild environment and its fantastic red coloration and flam likee architecture that also reveals some of the Hidden potential value the species has to offer now when it comes to dragon's breath in the reef aquarium it enjoys many of the same benefits that a lot of our other macroalgae species have uh or offer rather like korha hypnea certainly grassia when it's in the aquarium especially in refugiums such which is this dragon's breath is a powerful photosynthesizing agent taking in phosphates nitrates being a snc for heavy metals absorbing carbon dioxide and excr oxygen this benefits local populations of pods which use the surface area of halania as a nice little Sur uh housing area and substrate that also has localized supply of oxygen it also helps modulate the pH of high uh high production Coral systems that we have here whereas by having their refugiums on during the night we're able to modulate the carbon dioxide and oxygen levels and modulate therefore the pH overall in our systems to prevent fluxes happening when the light shut off in the main Coral displays halenia is Rich with all kinds of fatty acids bioactive starches bioactive Trace metals and uh pigments that can be digested and utilized all kinds of precious nutrition that can be one converted from all this waste nitrates and phosphates taken in uh from its photosynthesis and then two redelivered the things such as tangs and other aerous animals up in the display tank and for potentially our purposes something I'm interested in is breeding Urchins in the future using helenia as a high value feed stock for them and other uh seaweed eating invertebrates Beyond being a nutrient sink and some superb tang and sea urchin feed halenia dereli is also aesthetically extremely pleasing is gaining in popularity when it comes to macro only display aquariums where as opposed to just being a really attractive functional member of the cleanup crew in a way it transcends that becoming a display organism piece in and of itself overall dragon's breath offers many many many beneficial offerings to the re greater reef aquarium hobby both as a feed stock and as a wonderful refugia macro algae and the like but its benefits to humanity certainly do not end with its embrace in the reef aquarium Hobby helenia dereli in its native range in the Hawaiian islands and the Philippines is enjoyed as frankly a high value sea vegetable it's something which uh is very is widely consumed and potentially offers a wide range of health benefits to those that have consumed it traditionally over time we'll be discussing that more when it comes to the research going down specifically in the dragon's breath itself it also is a producer of kinan something that we discussed in our history of grassia episode a compound extremely important for the creation of agar that has allowed for the culturing of bacteria and launched Humanity forward as far as biomedical research while at the same time uh allowing us to make beers lotions and all kinds of other emulsified products we can see here that our tumbling halenia culture is getting blasted by this radon light these par readings when I get towards the surface get well over 500 if I get above the surface we get almost towards 1,000 micro moles per meters per second this helenia is an algae that can withstand really really bright light in fact thrives in it now how can it withstand let alone utilize all that bright light why it's the pigments contained and manufactured within the dragon's breast cells these pigments which not only Shield it from UV radiation but allow it to capture all that huge intensity of photons and convert it into all this wonderful red tissue you see before me why is it red why amongst others the pigment ficoin is responsible a magical pigment the same one in our red ronus microalgae ficoin is among many things but a giant bioactive battery which allows it to absorb all kinds of stray electrons prevent from UV radiation and basically act as a wonderful antioxidation agent now it's ficoin that has been spe specifically investigated for its direct biomedical applications these include things such as whitening the skin and improving complexion it includes things such as reducing wrinkles it also includes having anti-diabetic effects they're all kinds of things that ficoin are directly responsible for they even find that it's able to eliminate things like eoli and stafilic cacus bacteria so there's definitely an antimicrobial aspect when it comes to helenia uh specifically in the ficoin that it produces that can be extracted and redeployed for a wide range of potential biomedical applications the article links below from the Journal of Asian tropical biom medicine details how a specific fatty acid produced by helenia hexanoic acid can be concentrated and actually delivered in a petrius mind you so still ear ear on Research to breast cancer cells and when this hexadecanoic acid was exposed to breast cancer cells they did a wonderful thing now they didn't just die there's many ways to kill cancer just by eliminating it we have radiation and chemotherapy for that what is far more valuable is to have some compound be derived from anything in this case potentially from this humble seaweed that will induce a state of apoptosis in the cancer cell it's a $9 word that means means this cancer cell dies but everything's going according to plan it is a controlled cell death that the cancer cell initiates on its own accord to eliminate the spread of that disease now it's very exciting in this article that extracts from this algae can induce that as it provides a truly targeted way to eliminate cancer cells in a way that is far less destructive than the current means available uh in contemporary medicine so I'd like to start to conclude this episode with that in mind that within our tanks every Tang every every grouper every acropora every zoanthid sarop phyan every urchin within the guts of every snail every emerald crab could be the magic cell the cell of that shrimp that that that electric scallop that acropora perhaps the cell of a bacteria associated with it each one of them an infinite Treasure Trove a potential benefit and that's where I think the reef aquarium industry seeks its highest value and pursues its highest ideals where not only do we the community at large of reef Aquarius Love and Enjoy the organisms in our tanks and spend all of our time and our money and our passion our sweat and our tears to sustain them and keep them alive but deep down by spreading that awareness by spreading the amount of eyes that could to see and observe and be normalized these organisms who knows what Inspirations we might invoke who knows what Treasures May lie inside the cells of each and every one of the precious Critters inside our reefs so with that I'd like to end this episode on a question how many of you keep halenia dereli do you feed it to your tangs do you find uh learning about different aspects in research going on with organisms in your reef tank interesting or do you mainly just see them as something that you like to just enjoy the look of there's nothing wrong with that certainly but I'd be curious to see if there's more and more of you that might be interested in learning about what contemporary research is being done on the microscopic level when it comes to Noble macroalgae such as helenia and all the other organisms that we have here at the TSA Farm they say the cure for cancer might be found out in space others think within the depths of the rainforest they probably all true but certainly cures for cancer already exist right underneath our noses right underneath our gaze a few meters below the water's surface thank you we will see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music]