Does Blue Octodes or C. Barbata "take over tank"?

[duganderson]

I'm thinking about adding Blue Octodes & C. Barbata to the display of my 28. g. mixed reef tank (fish, RBTA, sofites, LPS, sps, red grape and dragons breath macros.

 

I've read a couple of folks that say that "Blue Octodes is a beautiful macro but if you have a lot of coral this macro gets out of hand, pieces break off they hook all over and grow in places you dont want it. kind of like xenia"

 

Do folks find it can take over and be hard to remove? I just want it in one spot in my tank.

 

How about C. Barbata? Is this at risk for taking over too?

 

Also, does C. Barbata bomb the tank or "go sexual" like some macros? Is it safe in the display portion?

[namxas]

By C. barbata, I'm assuming you mean Cymopolia barbata? It's not a super fast grower, and has nothing to do with Caulerpa sp. which have an undeseverved reputation, IMHO, as it's really only the fast-growers that tend to go sexual. This macro algae is calcareous, and grows in shallow water, so it's fairly light hungry.

 

As for Octhodes, I could never get the stuff to grow in our tanks, so I can't answer that one. I've heard that some types of macro tends to break up when it goes sexual, so this may be what's happening if the Octodes is growing like crazy, or the conditions get poor.

[Tamberav]

If a piece breaks off my ochtodes, it ends up slowing up elsewhere. I could totally see it being annoying. It is very hard to get it all off the rock... kind of breaks into many pieces and spreads. So far it stays in my sump and hasn't made it to the DT yet.

[duganderson]

Any other thoughts from folks about blue octodes breaking off and ending up all over the tank in an unmanageable way?

 

FYI, I can somewhat easily remove any rock if I need to pull off unwanted pieces; however, I would not want to have to do this more than a few times a year.