caulerpa question

[meathelmet75]

I just got a bunch from my lfs there are various kinds. ive never had caulerpa before and now its turning white. I have it placed in my sump with a 32watt pc light over the top i have the light on at night and off in the day does anyone know why this is

 

[monkeyboy]

That's what it does. Please familliarize youself with the search feature of the forums located here and at the top of the page. Type in caulerpa (watch the spelling!) and you'll get a stack of topics that will answer everything you ever wanted to know (and didn't want to know) about caulerpa. Enjoy!

 

[Anonymous]

in case you can't find it:

you need to use some carbon, your caulerpa is crashing.

iron dosing may keep it from happening in the future.

 

[brandon4291]

maybe your caulerpa is crashing due to the transplant shock. Its like any other plant, although much more vigorous, so if its not the transplant shock you may be low on nitrates which is possible in a well-skimmed system. these marine algaes need a continual source of nitrogen just like higher-order plants or they will slowly die off or grow very slowly.

I add two drops freshwater iron/fertilizer mixture to my marine setup to help the macros, your particluar dosings size will vary. You can guage it against micro algae growth so be very careful and add conservatively!

b429

 

[Reefguide]

Maybe stop skimming to see if the starts to grow??

 

[RicardoMiozzo]

Caulerpa spp crashes because of diferences in salinity from the water in the lfs tank and yours. These algae are very delicate and need a long aclimation period.
Nothing to do with skimming or other stuff.

 

[Reefguide]

Ricardo : I too have problems with my caulerpa crashing. That might be the answer to my problem. I was told not to worry about acclimating them. ARRRGGG! Well I should have know better, he was setting up his first refugium on his new 220 and I seemed to know a bit more than he did about the Fuge set-up. But he told me that he knew for sure that acclimation was not necessary ! This is my second batch of caulerpa.

 

[RicardoMiozzo]

Caulerpa is coated by a very thin filmlike material. When you don´t aclimate, this material breaks, and there is your caulerpa going...

 

[brandon4291]

I wouldnt say stop skimming, the macro wont be able to handle your nitrogen processing in place of your skimmer (for your bioload) and you might/will get a bigger crash.

I have in my experience not used acclimation and have had them crash due to the asexual mode after months of running. C. Taxifolia appears to last the longest IMO, and one group now has gone many months w/o asexual. My systems aren't at <5 nitrate, but if anyone has that lack of nitrogen and the caulerpa still grows fast Id sure like to know. I am referring to systems that have less than 5ppm without macro assisted export...not the nitrate levels in the presence of actively growing macro. Ill change my opinon if thats the case!

In one special system I have with no fish bioload, only corals and LR, macro (c taxifolia) wouldnt run very well until I added several larger snails and crabs (animal bioload) and began feeding them food pellets. Then the macro took off and thats been some time ago. Thought it might be due to the higher systemic nitrogen levels since I dont skim... this was a very small system of course thats why the new snails and food pellets had such a measurable effect.
Maybe they can run on those minute levels, but it seems as voracious as c tax is, it would need more base fuel. Its certainly not having any trouble taking over reefs of the world--it would be interesting to see what the ambient nitrate is on those problematic areas. Less than 5 ppm I would bet, so who knows what the variables are that may allow that kind of rapid growth in nature. Sunlight helps! I bet we'll get an interesting array of ideas so its interesting to see others observations...