Caulerpa Problem

[lebloom]

I asked this question awhile ago and got no response so I'm trying again. I have a piece of LR with some caulerpa growing out of it, a lot in fact. All of a sudden it starts turning white like its going to die. Just this last week it done the same thing. I asked my LFS about it since I got no answer here and he says something about that its going SEXAUL????? Anyone out there experience this and should I just get rid of it all together?:confused:

[VoodooChild]

I have no experience with it going sexual, but just how much of it has turned white? I put 6" in my tank probably a month ago and the first few weeks some of it turned brown and mushy or just looked really bad. Now there's probably about 3 feet of it in there and I have to prune once a week! Again, like a said, not sure about sexual, but perhaps you just need to wait more. Turning white doesn't sound like it's dying off, but I could be wrong here.

[lebloom]

I bought the stuff growing from a piece of LR and there wasn't all that much. Right now after I trimmed all the white out of it there is about enough for a small salad. I had quite a bit there till it turned white and started dying. But someone told me the white meant it was going sexual and that I had better get rid of the white part. That white stuff isn't going to turn back to a green color. I have no fish in my tank which will eat this stuff so it went rampant. Maybe a tang is what I need here????

[OrionGirl]

If you will go back to your original post, there were several viable responses for why the algae is dying back after a brief period of strong growth.

Getting a fish that eats the algae won't help--they don't want to eat dead/dying material either.

[lebloom]

I understand that fish won't eat the dead. I'll just get a tang to take care of all the live so it won't be there period.

[OrionGirl]

If your tank is not large enough--ie, bigger than a 55, the tang will be stressed and likely die. Not the best solution.

[lebloom]

The tank is a 75gal. The caulerpa was at first really taking off but, as of now it seems to want to die on me. Its dying in sections so its probably better to get rid of it.

[karlas]

would your calpulera be grape by chance that is one of the kinds know to go sexual. one way to avoid that is every now and then prune it back. it releases all the stuff it absorbed in the first place. if this happen adding carbon can pull it out and clean it up.it will make your tank cloudy for a day or so. or u could do a water change to help it.