Caluerpa crash

WatercolorsGuy

WatercolorsGuy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
#1
Within the last half hour my tank went from great looking to crap.
I have been keeping a couple pretty good sized groups of caluerpa in the sand bed, always keeping an eye on it to trim it before it went sexual. When the lights, just the actinics, went on this morning all looked good....came back 20 minutes later and the caluerpa had crashed for some reason. I pulled it all out but I have to get to work.
Will the tank be ok with the cloudiness of the caluerpa crash in it for the rest of the day? Running the skimmer in dry mode...wet would probably be better right now but I dont want it to over flow with all this while at work.
Any thoughts.....besides get the caluerpa out and leave it out, lol.;)
 
D

djkms

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
#2
When caulerpa goes sexual it strips the water column of oxygen and will cause the PH to drop. It also releases its bound up nutrients back into the water column. Make sure you have plenty of surface agitation, skim wet and a large water change is in order. Those are my suggestions. Most sexual events are not lethal to your tank unless its a lot of caulerpa in a small system. The cloudiness is just spores and dead caulerpa.

O and turn on your lights and keep them on over everything in your tank and fuge. This will help the system to produce O2 instead of cO2
 
kmellon

kmellon

Butterfly Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
#3
I've heard of this problem before. Is this only related to Caulerpa? are other macro's less prone to this type of issue? I will be setting up a sump/fuge on my system and i would prefer to add macro that I don't have to watch so closely. Thoughts?
 
aztecdreams

aztecdreams

Bat Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
#5
Chaeto is the preferred one to avoid something like this. Lots of club members have some they would be willing to part with
 
D

djkms

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
#6
kmellon;173150 said:
I've heard of this problem before. Is this only related to Caulerpa? are other macro's less prone to this type of issue? I will be setting up a sump/fuge on my system and i would prefer to add macro that I don't have to watch so closely. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
All macro algaes can go sexual, caulerpa is the most likely of all algaes to do so. Halimeda is in a close second. The best way to keep a macro from going sexual is making sure there are enough nutrients in the water and pruning regularly. You should have some measurable amount of NO3 and PO4 otherwise the macro starves and going sexual is the macros last ditch effort to survive by releasing spores into the water. This action of releasing spores requires a lot of energy on the part of the macro and the macro algae uses oxygen as the source of energy.

I dont recommend running lights over any macro 24/7 for 2 reasons. First reason being that macro algaes are in fact a plant and require a dark, or "cool down" period. The whole purpose of using macro algaes is to control and reduce nutrients. When there is light over them 24/7 the plant does not have a chance to rest and the efficiency of nutrient uptake becomes inhibited or ceases. The second issue you have is if you run your lights 24/7 and you have a power outage that just might be the "out" that the macro was waiting for and will use that dark period to go sexual.

The last piece of advise I can give when using macros and avoiding them from going sexual is to keep your colonies small. When you trim your macros also seperate strands as much as possible. This way if some does go sexual it will be typically a smaller colony which will cause less harm to your system. Macros do not all go sexual together, its typically only 1 maybe 2 colonies.
 
Craigar

Craigar

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
#7
djkms;173158 said:
All macro algaes can go sexual, caulerpa is the most likely of all algaes to do so. Halimeda is in a close second. The best way to keep a macro from going sexual is making sure there are enough nutrients in the water and pruning regularly. You should have some measurable amount of NO3 and PO4 otherwise the macro starves and going sexual is the macros last ditch effort to survive by releasing spores into the water. This action of releasing spores requires a lot of energy on the part of the macro and the macro algae uses oxygen as the source of energy.

I dont recommend running lights over any macro 24/7 for 2 reasons. First reason being that macro algaes are in fact a plant and require a dark, or "cool down" period. The whole purpose of using macro algaes is to control and reduce nutrients. When there is light over them 24/7 the plant does not have a chance to rest and the efficiency of nutrient uptake becomes inhibited or ceases. The second issue you have is if you run your lights 24/7 and you have a power outage that just might be the "out" that the macro was waiting for and will use that dark period to go sexual.

The last piece of advise I can give when using macros and avoiding them from going sexual is to keep your colonies small. When you trim your macros also seperate strands as much as possible. This way if some does go sexual it will be typically a smaller colony which will cause less harm to your system. Macros do not all go sexual together, its typically only 1 maybe 2 colonies.
Click to expand...
I've ran my tank with my sump for 3 years with 24/7 lighting with no isues has never went sexual on me. It's worked great to keep my nutrients in line.
 
D

djkms

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
#8
There is more than one way to skin a cat. I was just giving my opinion based on my experience and the research I have done with macro algaes, their care and life cycle :)

I was not stating that it can't be done, it is proven though that the efficiency is reduced when the plants are not given a chance to rest. I can try to find the research papers if you are interested.
 
WatercolorsGuy

WatercolorsGuy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
#9
djkms;173158 said:
All macro algaes can go sexual, caulerpa is the most likely of all algaes to do so. Halimeda is ....................ll go sexual together, its typically only 1 maybe 2 colonies.
Click to expand...
This seems to make sense. I have been keeping it in the main tank for about 6 months since my sump cracked. It was attractive and felt it would help export any nutrients. I felt by keeping it trimmed it would not go sexual. It didn't appear to be ready to go sexual, I was of the impression that when it started getting plantlets/leaflets growing off the main leaves it was starting to go sexual. Guess not.
 
WatercolorsGuy

WatercolorsGuy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#10
#10
aztecdreams;173157 said:
Chaeto is the preferred one to avoid something like this. Lots of club members have some they would be willing to part with
Click to expand...
I have a tiny bit in my 125g (fish only)...definitely will move it to the 90g (reef) when the chaeto gets going...
 
WatercolorsGuy

WatercolorsGuy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
#11
Well all is good now. I have removed most all of the remaining caluerpa from the tank now and did a 30%+ water change. The skimmer has been working over time and has cleared it up pretty good.
Does appear it took out my frag of Keds reds (maybe they will make a comeback) and 2 Talbots damsels, but overall I feel lucky it was just that. Probably if I could have done the water change immediately instead of 14 hours later they would have made it.
I got a nice frag of Dragon's breath today from Ailachami so that will take the place of the Caluerpa.
 
ReefCheif

ReefCheif

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
Platinum Sponsor
#12
#12
How do you know if its gone or is gong sexual? I too run the lights on my fuge 24/7 and have had no issues, but now Im concerned and would like to know what to look for? ANd just so Im on the same page here, Caluerpa is the stuff that looks liek it has feathers for leaves and cheato is the stuff that grows like starnds of hair?
 
WatercolorsGuy

WatercolorsGuy

Nurse Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#13
#13
Yes, caluerpa is commonly the feathery looking macro algae, however there are other species that have a different appearance. Yes chaeto is more stringy or hair like.
My understanding is that it is getting ready to go sexual once it starts groing new leaves off of the current leaves, like right in the middle or end of a leaf. Not at the same point on the stem like the other leaves. However, mine was not showing this and it crashed all of a sudden.
I am not sure my terms of "leaf" and "stems" is scientifically correct since these are macroalgaes...but.....

Anyone else know what to look for?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top