savannafish
Aquarium Advice Activist
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2017
- Messages
- 180
Your caulerpa is going 'sexual' .. Dying off. Not unusual at all.
http://r.search.aol.com/_ylt=AwrJ6y...gae-care/RK=0/RS=cTB2.HwifTDO1j4I0mf5zu3dRlA-
Not sure what you found but if you look up macros going sexual you will find plenty of info...
This is why caulerpa is an awful macro. Going sexual cam kill systems if it all goes.
People avoid this by using alternating lighting and 24 hours of light on them.
I only now keep cheato in my sump..
Your caulerpa is 'prolifera' sp. which is not so hard to get rid of ,but if you had racemorsa you would probably eventually be very sorry...It took months to completely kill with daily H202 in my last set up ,and some how it is in my sump now growing on my algae turf scrubber !
Most usually really regret ever letting it in their tank even though it looks 'nice '...
Cheato is algae that won’t go sexual on you and dump the nutrients back into the water column.
I’d remove the caulerpa and replace it with cheato, since it is much safer to use.
The Prolifera you have and Mexicana are the least invasive and not as bad as the 'grape' macros like racemorsa…They are the worst and hard to get rid of often..
The cheato will not look as nice in your tank.It is like green tumble weed and does not grow roots or leaves...
For most they use the macros or algae for nutrient removal like hank said and not as 'deco'. Few place them directly in tank .You may be able to control the prolifera if you just clip leaves off it regulary instead of waiting for it to loose them naturally ,but all macros go sexual eventually .
Not to my knowledge. I don’t use these algae as nutrient management. I have an algae turf scrubbers and use hair algae.
I have it in my tank but only to feed my tangs. Just don't overtake the tank with it.
I have had all the nice looking Macro Algae and ended with bad experiences in the Grape or bell looking one, greatly.
Bad
pics from 2016
I have a hard head so didn't get rid of most of it and kept some and just did it over again and have had huge melt downs about 3 times. (only have nano tanks)
Now have Prolifera like yours which I pull out to leave just a few leaves every month probably. It gets mad when changes happen. Like in evap and refilling with a larger amount of RO in a day, or changes in light and who knows what else causes this to blanch.
Sometimes it is just the tips from maybe too much lighting. There is a tiny bit of Mexican fern which pops up once in awhile I will pull out during the clean ups.
One I DO keep and really, really love so far have had since I got a little bit from a guy at MACNA Late summer 2014 is Black Codium there is also some referred to as Green, Mine has green tint to it too. It is all the way to the top of the Edge tank now. Planning on a nano upgrade so it might grow taller.
2016
I don't seem to have a current pic loaded atm, but here it is when I added a couple chunks to the more recent tank. This was a part near the sand and it got much less light so more green looking.
It stays sort of globe shaped and very mannerly some small parts will break off but it is a kind of slow grower but nice shape and looks so interesting. I do not have a high output light in the tanks (6.6G Edge and 12G rimless)
Pods love it the little fish and crabs will hang out in it and especially the Dwarf Brittle stars like it.