removing Prolifera toxins??

[darrellh]

I have a 215 FOWLR aquarium with 75 refuge/sump that I recently tried to introduce Prolifera macroalgae to. I have a 300W 'white' halogen flood lighting one end of the refuge 24/7 where the macro was supposed to grow. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but the macro apparently went sexual, and before I realized it, killed most of my fish (mostly Damsels, but two tangs surprisingly survived). Things seem to have stabilized after performing several 20% water changes and running carbon and poly filters, but the remaining fish are still acting somewhat stressed after 3 weeks.

My question is whether or not I'll be able to sufficiently remove the Prolifera toxins with just filtering, or if they have been absorbed into the sand and live rock and will be around for a long time. The refuge has a 2 year old DSB and 50 lbs live rock from when it used to be my main tank. The 215 gal main tank has a 1" coarse (1mm - 2mm) sand bed with 100 lbs of 'dry' rock and 50 lbs of older live rock. Should I dump all of the sand and live rock and start over, or will the toxins from the Prolifera eventually dissipate enough to support more delicate angels or even LPS and/or soft corals?

Thanks,
Darrell

[c. dawg]

If there are not enough nutrients for the caulerpa, it could feel the need to go sexual to spread to areas with more nutrients. This is why i always try to keep my caulerpa prolifer thinned out.

Also, i don't think caulerpa has toxins. As far as i know, after a couple water changes everything should go back to normal.

[spamin76]

Originally posted by c. dawg
If there are not enough nutrients for the caulerpa, it could feel the need to go sexual to spread to areas with more nutrients. This is why i always try to keep my caulerpa prolifer thinned out.

Also, i don't think caulerpa has toxins. As far as i know, after a couple water changes everything should go back to normal.

Caulerpa is toxic - it is a very noxious macro algae - it can make some fish sick if they try to eat it. If it is not disturbed though it will not release much of anything into the water though. If you are concerned about it, run carbon - that is your best bet.

[darrellh]

bump

[lakehorse61]

I fed grape calerpia to my tangs, triggers,etc.... they love it. i have always read and been told that a system with macro algae is healthier than one without.

where did you get that info? interesting.......

kelly

[c. dawg]

Originally posted by spamin76
Caulerpa is toxic - it is a very noxious macro algae - it can make some fish sick if they try to eat it. If it is not disturbed though it will not release much of anything into the water though. If you are concerned about it, run carbon - that is your best bet.

Interesting, it seems to make my fish healthier

[darrellh]

I have read from Anthony Calfo and other experts that most all single-celled macros like Caulerpa (which I assume Prolifera also falls under) are toxic when they crash. He also stated that prolonged feeding of these macros can be detrimental as well. It's kinda like feeding nothing but potato chips to people, it's great in the short-term, but it's the long-term affects that are a killer.

I'm convinced that my Prolifera crash killed about 10 supposedly hardy fish in my tank. My question is whether or not these toxins can be completely removed by chemical filtration and water changes, or if they will leach out from live rock and sand (at dangerous levels for more sensitive fish and corals) for a long time.

BTW, my Proliferia started crashing as soon as I put it in my refuge, so it's not due to a lack of pruning that it crashed. It's something to do with how it was shipped, how I acclimated it, the flow and lighting I'm providing, or something else ??

Thanks,
Darrell

[Fraservet]

I think I read somewhere that they can crash from shock due to shipping or acclimating, so I would assume that is what happened to you.

[c. dawg]

darrellh:
Thanks for sharing that, I have never heard that before. ( btw, I don't feed it to my fish, i just think it looks nice and all the pods like it )

I would think it would be around for a while (especially since i had some caulerpa mexicana start to grow and i didn't even put any of that stuff in my tank); however, I would think very little amounts of it would be in the water and delicate fish and corals would be fine - but i am not sure.

Unless someone else who has had this happen to them chimes in, I think the only way to find out is to try an angel in your tank or a piece of lps. I would think most softies would be hardy enough to survive the toxins. Oh, and i wouldn't throw all your LS and LR away.

Good luck and Sorry for your losses

[c. dawg]

Oops, sorry - my first double post

[spamin76]

Originally posted by c. dawg
Interesting, it seems to make my fish healthier

They are full of very active chemical compounds, many of which are really unknown. It's part of their natural defense to discourage fish from eating it . With triggers, they are so tough it would have to be majorly toxic to harm them much at all. It could very well be that certain fish just have stomachs adapted to digesting caulerpa - zooanthids are very noxious and most fish will leave them alone due to pretty foul chemicals they produce, but angelfish will eat them like popcorn - tangs, being herbivores are probably very used to dealing with the chemicals in many macro algaes(many of them have some kind of chemical defense). Really most macroalgae you find in the trade(except maybe gracillaria and in some cases chaetomorpha) are generally pretty unappetizing to most fish and have some nasty checmicals in them to make them taste bad.

Terrestrial herbs are the same way - they have chemicals in them to dissuade bugs and animals from eating them - chives, basil, mint, orregano, cilantro - in many cases these very chemicals are what make them taste good to us humans - in our guacamole, spagetti sauce, on our baked potatos, etc

There are actually people who like the taste of brocolli, brussels sprouts, asparagus...

I guess most macro algae is not so much toxic... as it is disgusting to many(but not all fish). The thing is, they can create some incredibly complicated chemicals, the larger affects of such are not well understood or documented in an aquarium - randy holmes farley has written a few articles about this - where people test only nitrates, ammonia, phosphate and think there is nothing else in the water that could cause a problem when really there are some pretty wild things that grow in the aquarium that can release some pretty wild chemicals of their own - things which are never tested for and not well understood.

[spamin76]

Originally posted by darrellh
I have read from Anthony Calfo and other experts that most all single-celled macros like Caulerpa (which I assume Prolifera also falls under) are toxic when they crash. He also stated that prolonged feeding of these macros can be detrimental as well. It's kinda like feeding nothing but potato chips to people, it's great in the short-term, but it's the long-term affects that are a killer.

Darrell

I am not sure this is the algae itself being toxic, I think it is more that when these plants go through their reproductive cycles they release tremendous amounts of sporelike materials into the water and rapidly deplete the tank of available free oxygen, thus everything in the tank that breathes dies of suffocation during an aesexual caulerpa cycle.