leaf thing

[jerejohnson]

can canyobacteria form into a leaf / plant? I have a 12 inch looks like a red maple leef in my tank but it resembels the color of red canyobacteria. and on a side note what causes calurpa to die i had tons of it growing and spreading the one morning the water was all hazzy and a patch was white the two days latter it happened again.. any help would be great ill work on getting some pictures thanks.

[Anemoneman]

Caulerpa, when allowed to grow rampant, will go "sexual" in that it reduces itself to spores in order to reproduce. This works fine in the ocean but is a nasty pollutant in our closed environments. When this happens your tank is in danger of being dangerously low on dissolved oxygen as the cellular algae eats it all up.
Keeping your macroalgae pruned or trimmed back will prevent this. It is also how you remove nutrients from your tank. Regular harvesting (and disposing) of caulerpa is a very effective way to "export" nutrients out of your tank to prevent cyanobacteria and microalgae.
To get rid of the hazy water, do a large water change and filter with disposable mechanical filtration media like a bag of floss in a powerfilter.