caulerpa: the green plague

[FishGrrl]

It could be the plot of a bad movie, if it were happening faster. Instead, its happening just slowly enough to be driving me slowly mad. Caulerpa is ever so slowly, yet steadily, taking over my tank. It started when a randy royal gramma decided to show its interest in breeding and placing pieces of caulerpa in holes in the rock. "How cute" I thought. How innocent it seemed. How horribly bad it went.

I have tried everything I can think of to remove it. Manual, animals, and still it grows. I've chipped off pieces of live rock, and it still comes back in that spot. A fox face, a long spine urchin, a sailfin tang, a sea hare, and they all ignore it (though all ate grape caulerpa.) I don't know what species of caulerpa it is. If you ever kept freshwater fish, it looks a lot like java moss. If it was a freshwater plant I could make a billion jillion dollars selling it. But its not.

I've been fighting it for nearly a year now and EVERY rock is covered, and most are dense forests of green. Its killing corals, and trapping detrius. I can't pull it fast enough, and when I do, it breaks off and floats off into the tank and establishes itself elsewhere. Its even growing on a powerhead and I can't pull it off there!

I am thinking at this point of getting all new live rock, cycling it elsewhere, pulling all this live rock, and removing as many corals as I can. This unfortunately will suck. I will loose a lot of zoos that are encrusting the entire surfaces of rock. I have some beautiful pink and yellow zoos that I can't seem to seperate from the caulerpa. ANd there is an amazing pink carpet anemone that hides deep within a rock when disturbed. I don't know what I can do with him other than say goodbye..

Before I do that, though, any last ditch efforts anyone can think of? I'm all out of ideas. My husband suggested 'fire' but I don't think the corals would survive.

[loyalty]

the only macro i mess with is chaeto because of situations like yours. maybe it's time to "cook" your rock? a good buddy of mine had a wicked (and i mean it'd make you cringe) case of hair algae, but after 2 months of cooking his rock he's enthusiastic about the hobby again

[Samala]

Oh my.. going off the java moss-like description you may have Caulerpa verticillata, very fine looking Caulerpa, very small, very much like a moss. See this thread. Unfortunately, we did not have any ideas besides the fish/inverts you have tried. Sculpin's long battle with it really makes me wonder if perhaps getting new live rock isnt the best route to deal with it.

Not sure what else you can do. Caulerpas seem to do well even in MgCl soaks, and hyper/hypo salinity. Hot water they definitely do not like, which might be an idea, but again you're sacrificing your LR to try it, and it may come back just the same.

I hope this beast isnt your problem species. A pic of the invading algae might help us with ID and possibly a suggestion for a better predator or another removal method.

>Sarah

[55gSW]

I don't know if this will help with your problem but awhile back I had a small amount of hair algae growing in my reef tank. I bought a lettuce sea slug to eat the hair algae (and because I think they're cool) and instead it ate every piece of caulerpa in my tank! Made me mad because I wanted some growing in the tank....
(Hair algae went away on it's own, go figure. )

[toonces]

well, before you go and wreck the tank, i would try EVERYTHING. maybe trade in your current foxface and tang for two new ones. try another species of urchin. another species of sea hare. and so on...