chvynva916 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 The lush fastgrowing grape caulerpa I have in my fuge has suddenly seemingly disapeared. Half of it seems to have melted away. Can this be caused by the nearby aiptasia stinging it? If so, this is all out war. Link to comment
Crakeur Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 dunno about aiptasia doing that. I had two really large striped aips in my fuge and the caulerpa grew around and over it without issue. Link to comment
Physh1 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Sounds like it went sexual. What this means is that when macro-algaes goes sexual it turns a white translucent color and releases sperm and eggs into the water and the rest of the plant disintegrates and releases excess nutrients into the tank. It is a way for algae to spread in a much faster way in the wild. In captivity however it can be kind of bad depending how much goes sexual due to the excess nutrient release. You should remove the macro-algaes as soon as it shows any sign of going sexual. I am unsure as to what triggers macro-algaes to go sexual but I've had some success keeping the macro-algaes trimmed frequently. Grape caulerpa (caulerpa racemosa?) seems to be the most common to go sexual with the Spaghetti macro-algaes least likely to go sexual. Some people who use things like phosphate removers or heavy carbon users seem to have their algaes go sexual very soon afterwards. From that I would gather that having trace elements added on a regular would be beneficial and making sure you don't make your water too clean or nutrient free. I'd probably do a small water change to remove some of the released nutrients and keep a algae bloom from poping up. Cameron Link to comment
chvynva916 Posted June 11, 2003 Author Share Posted June 11, 2003 I thought it might have gone sexual, but it had previously showed no warning signs of it. It was actually a pretty small strand (only ~4 inches total with less than 15 "grapes") and so I'm not that worried about it, everything looks fine. I just hope it doesn't keep happening. Link to comment
Physh1 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Best way I've found to keep it from going sexual is to prune it occasionally. Cameron Link to comment
freakaccident Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Pruning back to a small pod in the refugium works great. I just prune back to almost nothing and fan it out so that it is not dense. I prune weekly now. Daily I check to see if there is any suspect caulerpa to yank out. Link to comment
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