Unidentified plant invasion

goroboy

goroboy

AC Members
Jul 15, 2007
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Hey,

It's been a few months since I posted last...Some time ago I bought a little live-rock with a few polyps and a plant coming out of it. The polyps have spread to some of the other rocks, which looks amazing...but the plant is becoming a pest.
First of all I don't know its real name. At the store they told me it's called grape algae, but I haven't found anything like that online I'm not even sure it's algae at all. I'm uploading a picture so if anyone can give me any accurate info on it I'll appreaciate.
So the plant is growing out of control. It started growing roots on one of my corals (visible on the pic) and the polyps (the coral was damaged, but it's healing now), so I'm being forced to keep trimming it to prevent this kind of accidents. Nevertheless it seems that the more I trim it, the more it grows. I don't wanna take it out - the 'branches' swing with the water flow and give a lot of movement to the aquarium, but I'd like to know how to keep it under control....can you help? any suggestions?
1546662233_ce3a799679.jpg
 
Yes, it's calupera it's great for removing nutrients from your tank but, as you've noted it's rather invasive. The issues don't stop their either mate. You'll have to constantly remove it from your tank if you don't' it will start to reproduce sexually and then it will be more or less impossible to contain. I would manually remove as much of it as possible and do my very best to keep it in bounds.
Lots of s.w. critters also like the taste of calupera so you wouldn't be remiss if you got some biological assistance how ever you shouldn't rely on them as a crutch under any circumstance. You'll really need to keep it under thumb or it will be the creature that ate your tank! How big is your tank and what do you have in it?
cheers
Max
 
not for long though right 420 it grows FAST. Oh, next time try leaving a bit more lol and maybe it won't affect your trates as much.
 
I have some in fuge with single strip 20W t5 light. Even with that, it grows out of control and I have to constantly take it out to make sure it doesn't clog the drain. Once in awhile, I pull out a chunk of them and give it to LFS. Because they are illegal in California, the supply is somewhat restricted. It's not impossible to find, but most LFS will charge grip of premium, so I turn it back around to them and receive store credit. The only revenue generator in my tank. haha.
 
thanks to everyone for their replies... my tanks specs are the following for those who asked:

60 L Reef TankEquipt.-Filtration:Dolphin 500H cascade filter, counter-current Oddisey Skimmer, Sunny 1200 Power FilterLighting:Dymax 14 W 12,000 K white light T5, Dymax 14 W Blue Moon Actinic T5Other:150W heater with thermostat, 11.5 kg of assorted live rock, 4 kg of coral sand and 2.5 kg of live sand from an established aquarium.Added elements:CombiSanFood:Fish;MarineGro granules, AntiBacterial granulesCorals & Inverts;chopped fish, chopped shrimp, ChromaPlexInhabitants:Fish:2 Chrysiptera Parasema (Yellowtail Blue Damselfish)Inverts:Chocolate Chip Starfish (Protoreastor nodosus ?), Harlequin Crab, 1 Hermit crab, 3 Turbo Snails, 1 (rather big) Coral Banded Shrimp (Stenopus hispidus).Corals:Soft Polips growing on the live rock, 2 Sunflower Corals (Tubastreae Faulkneri)
 
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