Caulerpa is Disentigrating...or something.. HELP!

[Dewman]

I recently put a CPR Aquafuge on the back of my 10 gallon nano. I stocked it with Feather Caulerpa and a small sprig of Green Grape.
I took the Algae and rubber banded them to pieces of a long dead montipora skeleton and shoved the coral under the mud. This way they would anchor in place.
I have an 18 watt Jebo compact flourescent light over the top... It has built in hangers that slide out of grooves in the sides which it uses to hang flush with the top of the 'fuge. I have the Rio 200 that came with it to feed the 'fuge. It only puts out 135-40 gallons per hour of flow...
I read somewhere that Caulerpa likes moderate flow. I figure in a 4 inch wide space 140 gph is moderate. I also read that it is tricky with light needs...

Anyway, the leaves of the feather have started to tatter and turn white and rot. The stems have started to turn as well. The grape has remained dark green and plump with no signs of rot.

Does anyone have any tricks to keeping this from happening to the Grape? Yesterday I bought another clump of grape and have let it float free in the 'fuge.

Can anyone tell me any little tricks that I am not doing. From what I understand I should have this stuff growing so fast it is pushing my light off the tiop of the refugium.

 

[Dewman]

Here is a pic of the algae... you can see the dying feather and the plump grape.

this is how close the light is to the 'fuge also...

 

[Anonymous]

Some caulerpas do this more readily that others. I wouldn't worry about it spreading to your grape, looking at the picture it doesn't look like it rotted it looks like it was "going sexual" as they say. If the whole feather caulerpa colony didn't turn white, then it will come back, odds are bits of it will pop back up anyway. The best way to prevent this from happening that I know of is to not let it get overgrown, I have noticed that when a colony gets to a cramped it gets more and more likely to happen. That was obviously not the case here, so maybe the algae had other cues that it should spread it's seed.

It takes a little while for caulerpa to take off, your refugium looks really nice, I suspect that in a months time you will have to be harvesting often!

 

[Anonymous]

Relax! This happen all the time.

 

[reefman101]

I can't always grow caulerpa. I suspect this is a nutrient supply-balance problem, but I have no facts. If the total mass gets too large it goes asexual (to me it looks like it is dying). Ron Schimek (sp?) says it is triggered by the size of the algae. This may be true but I think there are other factors. If I keep several different strands of algae, all pruned small, they still dissolve when the total mass in the tank gets too large.

 

[Anonymous]

>... Ron Schimek (sp?) says it is triggered by the size of the algae.

So how does a specific part of the algae "know" that a critical mass is reached? Obviously this is a complicated issue, even for a simple macroalgae. I can offer a few outland-ish hypotheses, but that will probably make me sound more than a naive idiot that I am.

 

[Dewman]

Thanks Laura, and everyone.

i got up this morning and the new clump of grape I put in there had started to turn milky white on the side exposed to the light. i think I am going to put some filter material over the light to cut down on the intensity and see if that helps. Maybe this is all trial and error.
Too bad it's trial and error to the tune of about $5 per clump of caulerpa 8O

Since i want Macro in the main tank, i am going to try and root some of the red Grateloupia sp, and see if it does well in the main tank. Liveaquaria has some for sale.

 

[Anonymous]

I doubt that the light is what make the grape turn milky white, but experimentation does not hurt... never know, since this is how we learn.

 

[Anonymous]

I've found Caulerpa to be very forgiving in terms of lighting, as long as it's relatively strong (not from those awful Aquarilux lights). However, HOW you prune and anchor is very important. I would not rubberband it to anything, I would allow it to grow its own holdfasts. NEVER pull or clip just a portion of a frond, take it from the holdfasts only.

And remember, Caulerpa is very toxic, so be careful with it.

 

[Anonymous]

Caulerprin and other organics is released by Caulerpa, but I never heard any problem with it on human... any link, Ms. Orange?

I agree with your statement, but I have had a few Caulerpa that managed to grow into a big clump from a tiny fragment of the "leave." I guess it can be a real challenge for some, and a weedy PITA for others.

 

[Dewman]

SeaMaiden,

You said that the caulerpa is TOXIC?
Do you mean toxic to my fish, inverts, etc? Or only to me.
I was not aware of this.

I believe that one of my problems is that the LFS is pinching off pieces of its plants out of their mud refugium and selling them to me. I will tell him he needs to stop breaking the plants apart and only sell them whole.

Anyone have some Red Kelp (Grateloupia sp) they would like to part with?

 

[Anonymous]

I found this on the web:

3.b. Reproduction: In the aquarium strain of C.taxifolia only male gametes have been observed and this strain is apparently only vegetatively spreading (3.21Zuljevic and Antolic, 2000). Sexual reproduction of this aquarium strain appears to be a stochastic event (Clifton and Clifton, 1999) as it has been only observed in temperatures above 25°C (3.21Zuljevic and Antolic, 2000).

Caulerpa's life cycle is therefore poorly understood. But when it does occur it involves "holocarpy", in which the entire protoplasm gives rise to biflagellate gametes at once; i.e. almost all of the protoplast of a thallus is converted into gametangia containing the biflagellate dissimilar (anisogamy) motile gametes, which are discharged through papillae. Upon merger of the gametes, the zygote develops into a protonema, which then forms a typical diploid (2n) thallus (3.23Silva, 2002). Most siphonous green algae are primarily diploid; the gametes are the only haploid cells in the life cycle (3.24Raven et al., 1992). Since C.taxifolia's life cycle is poorly understood, it could well be that the mature sporophyte releasing quadri-flagellated zoospores that in turn would give rise to the gametophyte , is inexistent (see fig. 4d).
According to Meinesz, under lab-conditions C.taxifolia is able to disperse a shower of male and female gametes that pair up and fuse to form a zygote (new plant). But over more than 10 years that he has observed this species in the Mediterranean, he has never seen evidence of sexual reproduction. In the wild, though, the only reproductive cells released are male (fig.3e), confirming existing evidence that all C.taxifolia in the Mediterranean are clones of that single aquarium plant release in 1984.
Genetically, this invasive species shows relatively little variation, thus vegetative reproduction by fragmentation is the most common mode of proliferation (asexual or clonal propagation). The break-up of thalli (mediated via anchor damage, fishing gear or storm activity as small as 1cm2) gives rise to new colonies that usually appear between 2 and 10m deep (3.25Meinesz et al., 1993) during summer and fall when growth rates are highest.

http://www.sbg.ac.at/ipk/avstudio/pierofun/ct/ct-1.htm

 

[Anonymous]

Also:

In any case, reproduction in algae generally occurs discretely and the specialised cells involved are difficult to see without a microscope. However, in the green genera Halimeda and Caulerpa reproductive activity involves the entire thallus which is fully transformed into gametes (holocarpy) and disappears after their release. The Halimeda case is remarkable as the thallus becomes discolored and the cells containing the gametes emerge as green balloons on the surface of the whitened segments.

For halimeda (http://www.com.univ-mrs.fr/IRD/atollpol ... algfor.htm)