So today I finally got out of bed( Oh how I did not want to) and went to check on my tanks and my 20g tanks water changed from perfectly clear to the eye to green overnight. I have not added anything new since the weekend which was just a few corals from my main tank that are low light corals which I dipped(I had some zoanthid eating nudi’s).
The macro’s I have are-
Halimeda
Caulerpa
ULVA sea lettuce small piece
Gracillaria
And the red grape stuff herbivores love
I am not sure if this is a result of the Caulerpa going a-sexual ???
That is the only plant in the tank that does not look normal. It is more less lying down then standing upwards I also noticed little thin arms with balls at the end it also have big areas where the color is fading and some spots with yellow and red algae growing on it. I got the best picture I could to show you guys that.
I think you are correct Jeff. I had same thing happen twice, nothing to worry about.
I finally found a useful link A Warning Sign of Impending Caulerpa Sporulation by Gene Schwartz - Reefkeeping.com and it is indeed gone sexual. The little odd things on the algae are actually called gametangia once they pop up the plant is going sexual followed by the cloudy tank. This site recommends removal of the plant once noticed to prevent the cloudy water. I am not having luck finding if I need to take this out if it will affect my tank besides cloudy or if it will crash my system.
It does this when it is lacking nutrients that it normally needs to stay alive and tries to reproduce as a last chance. Which makes sense because my 20g tank shows no bad nutrients in the tank when I did my tests last week or the week before and everything was at 0’s
I was told that when that plant starts to turn that whitish color u need to trim that part off because that’s what it will do
I always wondered about that when it would fade to white. I thought it was just new growth from pruning it.
This is good to know.
Thanks for posting.
[quote=“JustSumGuy, post:3, topic:4896”]
I finally found a useful link A Warning Sign of Impending Caulerpa Sporulation by Gene Schwartz - Reefkeeping.com and it is indeed gone sexual.[/quote]
Thx for the link.
Took a little tweaking the search keywords. It was great to finally find what I was looking for info wise and it be dead on.
I’m not certain that its the macro spawning. I used to have a tank over run with that serrated taxifolia. I watched it dump all its green chlorophyl in a matter of minutes, right before my eyes ,several times. I think it just eats itself out of house and home. nutrient deficiency. two times it was just shortly after the lights came on in the morning. it started at one end, and just spewed green smoke like from the fronds, until they were all mostly clear like celafane, and the water was green a couple days. each time it took less than a few minutes. Taxifolia seems to do that a lot, when stresses out or out of gas. it just grew back from its hold fasts.
isn’t caulerpa’s going sexual able to be avoided by keeping the sump light on 24 hrs?
[quote=“moliken, post:10, topic:4896”]
isn’t caulerpa’s going sexual able to be avoided by keeping the sump light on 24 hrs?[/quote]
Thats what I found online. I keep my sump on my main tank on opposite schedule of my main.
The 20gallon tank has no sump just a hob filter and a in tank skimmer.
I pulled all the pieces with the gametangia out and the tank has already cleared up. I still have a little left still in the tank that was separated from the infected piece.