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Old 07/24/2003, 09:49 PM
horge horge is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: Philippines
Posts: 1,793
Quote:
Originally posted by Reefrunner262
Lettuce Sea Slugs eat that stuff exculsivly, at least from what i have read.

Travis
Hi Travis
What you've read is much repeated myth.

When everyone started sharing online heartaches about Bryopsis, some entrepreneur must have skimmed through the internet to find a suitably-marketable herbivore.

The sacoglossan "lettuce" slug Elysia crispata (formerly Tridachia crispata) must have come up in searches because of a published study on its juvenile dietary preferences by Clark & Bussaca (1978). The study listed Bryopsis plumosa among the algae that the juveniles chowed on. Batophora oerstedi, Halimeda spp, Penicillus spp, Caulerpa paspaloides and Caulerpa racemosa filled out the rest of the menu in the locality they studied.

Somehow, Clark & Bussaca's "will eat Bryopsis"
got twisted into "will eat Bryopsis exclusively"

Jensen & Clark (1983) even showed that Caulerpa verticillata beat out Bryopsis for food preference among the lettuce-slug juvies.


Lesd et al.
Hi
The chief means towards Bryopsis spread in aquaria apparently remains fragmentation. Physical removal HAS to be accompanied by efforts to trap all algal debris generated by trimming/scraping.

If you're scraping in-tank, you'd better have a running siphon on-site to draw off viable algal debris. The siphoned-out water can be discarded, or else fine-filtered and then used for preparing kalkwasser (the high pH nukes algal debris to hell, and helps lock down any released organics) for later use. All precipitate is thus better discarded and NOT introduced t the display: just the clear-ish kalk fluid, thank you.

If you're scrubbing LR down in a basin somewhere else, the rock has to be rinsed thoroughly with saltwater prior to reunion with the diplay. The rinsewater is best discarded.

Systems with a UV filter and very good throughput have a noticably easier time controlling Bryo outbreaks ---the UV oxidizes a lot of waterborne nutrient, and kills waterborne (and viable) algal debris.


hth.
I'll post an article on another algal Genus one of these days.

Last edited by horge; 07/24/2003 at 10:03 PM.