Caulerpa and 3 gal.

[PFB]

I just introduced a small bunch of flat-blade caulerpa to my tank.

C. prolifera, I think.

From what I have read and as per LFS, this will help control Nitrates (kind of a mechanical filter).

I have been warned to keep it in check with frequent pruning to keep it from crashing. LFS said this species is less likely to crash as say grape.

I did it mostly because I like how it looks and have placed it to hide the heater and micro pump.

I used it a lot in my FO tanks for food for Tangs and such. The fish pruned for me.

 

Question, did I make a mistake for a nano?

 

FYI, 13 watt JBJ combo 10K and blue.

[spoondigity]

If you have the time and energy to keep up with it I would guess you are ok. I had some form of vine like caulerpa (I am guessing that it was caulerpa since it was vine like and grew REALLY fast, and seemed similar to some caulerpa pictures I had looked at) with very small fragile lilly like leaves on it in my 10 gallon. It seemed to go through stages from very limited growth early on as it seemed to die off in shaded areas and move into brighter areas. Once it got well established in a bright area on one of my live rocks, this stuff absolutely went CRAZY. It was making what seemed like half an inch to an inch growth a day but that was probably my imagination. The biggest pain for me was that the algae would cover every other form of life on my live rock and effectively block out all of the other life. Also, there were a LOT of the little leaves on the caulerpa and they would continually come off, plugging filters and powerheads slowly over time. This also made it impossible for me to prune back because there were just too many small leaves that would fall off as I tried to pull off the vine parts. If your caulerpa type does not have so many leaves and/or they are not very fragile, you may not have this problem. I finally transfered some tank water into a bucket and moved the rock into that bucket while I manually stripped it all off the rock. Now I have no caulerpa but I kept the Halmeida that came on my rock work since it is slow growing and doesn't pollute my tank with debris. Let us know how it works out. I would be tempted to get some if I knew of a safe, no hassle type to get.

[PFB]

If it works out, I will take a picture and attach.

LFS has some in their 7 gal. and claims that it is very slow growing, doesn’t crash and doesn’t have much die-off.

Thanks for your input – I was warned about some of the fan-like and grape.

[Korbin]

I have the kind with long flat-ish blades in my 2.5 gallon. It grows fast, but it is easy to remove. I could rid the tank of it in a matter of seconds, no problem.

 

I don't think the idea behind using calupera to remove nitrates is mechanical filtration. The calupera uses nitrates to grow. You also use nitrates to fertilize your lawn. It absorbs them and when you prune the calupera, you take nitrates out with it.