Sick Maiden's Hair?

[Salt4Us]

The maiden's hair, 2 days ago, the base of the one clump of it started to turn white, now today it is fuzzy like it's deterioating. Any suggestions? Should I let it do it's thing? Should I cut it or rather prune it down? It just seems to be one clump and hasn't affected the other clump, but I'm afraid it will spread to the other. Don't want to lose it, it is a beautiful piece.

Thanks!

 

[reefrunner69]

Looks like it has started to go sexual. I would prune back the white part, it will probably grow back. This, of course is coming from someone that knows nothing about this particular macro algae. FWIW, there is some antecdotal evidence that the addition of iron will prevent caulerpa from going sexual.

 

[Salt4Us]

Ok thanks Kevin, thought it was weird that it was white instead of green, good to know it's not dying. Will get out the shears tonight thanks!

 

[reefrunner69]

This, of course is coming from someone that knows nothing about this particular macro algae.

I don't know for certain that it's not. I am applying what I know about caulerpa (not all that much) to this situation, hopefully it holds true.

 

[BillyZ]

I have some Caulerpa geminata http://www.algaebase.org/action.las...se=PictureDetail.html&-recordID=32984&-search that has just done the same thing.. a number of the branches have turned white/clear. Does going sexual mean it's going to spore/spread ? If so then this would only be a bad thing if you didn't want more of it in your tank right?

 

[Salt4Us]

Right, I cut out the white fuzzy stuff, and get this, the turbo snails at what I didn't cut away down to a stub, I thought maiden's hair had something in it that would make it so algae eating critters wouldn't eat it, wonder if the white stuff didn't have that deterrent in it. Anyways it's looking a little better today. If it does spread that's great too, we love the way it looks it gives the tank a nice look.

 

[reefrunner69]

If so then this would only be a bad thing if you didn't want more of it in your tank right?

To get more in your tank...just let it grow. When it goes sexual, it releases all the spores, as stated, but this is very bad for the tank. It releases all the toxins it has taken up (only concentrated) and the spores can easily use up all the available oxygen. Large amounts of caulerpa going sexual has preceeded many tank crashes.

 

[Salt4Us]

Well the water had been cloudy from it, so we had done a water change and also put a filter carbon thingie in the fuge and it cleared up quite a few hours later and did a test on it, the only thing high was nitrate that had gone from 0 to 2.5, which I would imagine will go back to normal soon I hope. It seems to stay on the same rock when it grows more for now, which is fine, if it spreads thats fine too, just don't want it crashing anything

 

[Salt4Us]

Ok, the whole dang thing is going sexual now, the tips of it have little buds on them and it makes the water very cloudy, I have some GAC in the outtake part of the fuge, my question is, how bad is it to keep the GAC going in there? I don't want anything else dying because of this, and if I clip off all of it there won't be anything left of it. This really bums me, it's a beautiful piece and I wish it would go back to being green and full.

 

[reefrunner69]

I would remove the offending piece and do a waterchange. You might consider adding iron to the tank, there is some anecdotal evidence that it prevents caulerpa from going sexual.