if you’ve read my occasional posts about very odd coral symptoms i narrowed it down to some kind of chemical warfare and i keep thinking its the LPS in my tank, but i just read something written by Anthony at WWM about caulerpa
“antibiotic properties shed into the water that concentrate and impact coral and other invert health, noxious compounds secreted at/by the holdfasts to dissolve organic matter causing like duress, significant yellowing agents (far more than most other plants/alga) that reduce light transmission to coral, etc and require above average chemical filtration and protein skimming, and the list goes on” ~Anthony
i have a refugium packed with this. does anybody else have a large quantity of caulerpa in an SPS tank’s fuge? I’m hauling it out perhaps tommorow and replacing with cheato and see what happens with some waterchanges.
I won’t use the stuff at home due to this, but I also have OCD. There are PLENTY of people with full out stony tanks which keep massive amounts of Caulerpa. This includes lots of former Reef central tanks of the months, the shop tank at Armco Aquatics, Julian Sprung’s home tanks, Chris Brightwell’s tank, and many more.
It is a debated topic as to what extent the toxins harm the corals. Fax is just about all corals and algae release toxins to reduce the thread of getting over grown. It is all out warfare out there on the reefs.
I agree but im just trying to eliminate possibilities, when i started to think of it the problems all started when the caulerpa entered (and started growing fast) the tank, my cheato ball just suddenly collapsed and dissolved seemingly overnight in the same and then all the coral issues started.
tim, do u have a powerhead in the fuge? my cheato went from the size of a basketball or two to a golf ball in a week. i pulled the powerhead out of my fuge and the cheato is growing again. that may be why the cheato died.
but ya i use lots of caleurpa, it came as a freebie with a reefcleaners order. i had 2 leaves and now i have a 20 gal filled. i leave my fuge lighted 24/7, and run lots of carbon, i also have gracilaria(sp), mangroves and cheato.
Tim I have a large fuge with cheato and caulerpa. The fuge for just macro is 2ftx2ftx18 inches and is full of both. It has a small 18 watty pc light on it at all times and times is shut off for a day there is a small powerhead to help with dead spots. I have alot of SPS LPS softies mushrooms clams and have not seen mine do anything like yours are doing. Saw the ones you took over to DPA.