HELP ?grape? Caulerpa racemosa is taking over

Captnslapy

Captnslapy

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Aug 25, 2008
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Vermilion,Ohio
HELP “grape” Caulerpa racemosa is taking over

I was given some live rock from a friend who was taking down a tank. looked great so I put in my 55 reef. I went out of town for about a week and came home to my tank being over run by this stuff. Any way to get rid of it? Replacing my live rock is not an option. I pulled out tons tonight, but i don't want to keep doing this either..Help...
 
Ugh.. sorry to say, but the only way I know to truly rid a display tank of grape caulerpa is to replace the rocks or take them out and "cook" them for several months in order to starve the algae of light/food if you want to keep the rocks "live". (cooking=placing in a trashcan/rubbermaid with SW, powerhead, and heater with the lid on so no light can get in and make the algae grow). You can also boil the rocks, which will kill everything in the rock really fast, but then you have dead rock which could cause more problems than solve due to the die off coming from the rock, so if you boil rock you should still "cook" it for several weeks after with a good live rock to reseed the dead ones you boiled. The roots get so deep into the cracks in the rocks there really is no way to get rid of it completely with the rock in the tank. You can pull and pull and pull for years on end.. but still you can keep going at it weekly years later because you can't get to the root of the problem, which is inside the rock.
 
The tank in my office became infested with a leafy variety of caulerpa from what started as a small piece on a frag from someone else's tank. Within days, it was growing everywhere and required frequent pruning just to keep it from smothering the corals. I added a tang on a temporary basis to come in and eat it up, and it thankfully has. If another few weeks go by without seeing any signs of it, I think I'll move the tang out so it can be in a more suitable home.
 
Captnslapy said:
what kind of tang did you get?
Click to expand...

I didn't really choose a particular tang, the situation just came about where one was available that I wouldn't have to pay for. A fellow hobbyist wanted his sailfin tang out of his tank, so I'm "borrowing" it for the time being.
 
Not all tangs will eat it, even within the same species. You can also try a Rabbit fish too.
 
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