Crakeur Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 oddly, my tank has battled and won all types of algae problems but is now losing the fight to an overgrown caulerpa mexicana or prolifera issue. I have tried everything and aside from pruning, nothing seems to work. I really don't want to plop a tang in there to eat away as a third fish will mean massive water changes to avoid death and mayhem. Anyone else have any ideas? oh and where the hell did all my aiptasia come from. Haven't had one in my tank for well over 3 months and now I have two biggies right in front, one in the back that is out of syringe distance and several in my fuge, where they are more than welcome to reside. Help me with the caulerpa before I do the same thing my parents are doing with their 72 gallon, which is toss it out the window. thanks *edited. for some odd reason I was saying halimeda when it was caulerpa, which is far worse and more annoying than anyone can imagine. corrected now and still need help** Link to comment
technoshaman Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 Not sure what you can do other than maybe scale back the lighting a little bit to inhibit growth and keep pruning. I think mexicana sends out runners? I have something like it in one of my tanks and it grows along the rocks pretty fast. As for the aiptasia maybe too high nutrient levels? They can't just appear without excess food to fund all that asexual fission or whatever they do. I would maybe throw a skimmer on for a few weeks, scale back feeding? Also peppermints will eat the small ones if you get the carribean variety. Mine demolished all my aiptasia about 6 weeks ago and have yet to see any return in my 46 gallon. Be warned in a large tank they are a pain to get out. Also I got a few 12" lab grade pipettes I can use to blast them with either scalding water or kalk (the kalk kind of smears since its not a needlepoint). I read a neat article btw on using aiptasia as a biological filter, setting them up like an ATS system or in a small raceway and letting them suck all the small organics out of the water. I would gladly trade an aiptasia problem for my current plague of majanos!! Link to comment
Crakeur Posted February 1, 2003 Author Share Posted February 1, 2003 bah, I don't care about the aiptasia, other than that they appeared after so long without them. the algae has gotten so bad that it actually caused satchmo's xenia to move. this is a good thing in that I can now see a section of tank that was completely blocked. this is bad because, well, the caulerpa is just growing like wild. Link to comment
cmoreash Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 IME, emerald crabs go insane over caulerpa....i don't have any macro algae left alive in any of my tanks due to those crabs Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 Is it sending roots through your LR? If not...follow it to it's root and pull. Link to comment
Djm9288 Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 I have heard that emeralds are good on bubble algae. IS that true? I may want one then Link to comment
Crakeur Posted February 2, 2003 Author Share Posted February 2, 2003 emeralds eat bubble and they will pick at all kinds of stuff, including clams (caught an emerald in my tank doing just that). Sadly, this guy won't touch the caulerpa. I didn't even know it was there, I thought I had removed both emeralds for disrupting the aquascaping and being general menaces to their environment. Link to comment
tinyreef Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 normally i like a good challenge problem but you've gots me pretty stumped too. without causing wholesale destruction i'm at a loss. i know you've got xenia so i hesitate to unleash crabs : or altering the water or lighting parameters too much. could you direct hi flow at the prolifera or rocks they're on? they tend not to like high flow ime. but no matter what i can't see avoiding some serious pruning (one shot and a wc afterwards) as the flow would at best just stop/slow the advance. can you shift all the lighting toward the blue end? (e.g. 3:1 actinics:daylight, or even better kill the daylight in favor of a realy high kelvin rating) the prolifera may be starved back a bit but again it's a very radical/risky proposition. better to rent a tang for a week if you can. Link to comment
Crakeur Posted February 2, 2003 Author Share Posted February 2, 2003 Ok, so I did a massive pruning this evening (the baby was extrememly sleepy and I took advantage of the window). I hauled about 1/2 a cup of algae out, mostly caulerpa with some hair mixed in. 1/2 cup sounds like a lot but I tossed out some rocks that were covered and some substrate came up with some algae. I also got to remove some xenia with the algae and place even more of it in a better spot so that tank is showing signs of improvement. Sadly, I still have a few spots to work on and, since moving the powerheads is not really an option, I will be decreasing the lighting even more (almost exclusively 32w pc actinic, Mh only on for a few hours at most). Water change tomorrow afternoon or evening, depending on wether or not I can pick up a baby tang, which I will then move to the office. I just hope the clown and the dottyback make nice. Man I am not looking forward to doing a waterchange a night. Link to comment
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