Grape Caulerpa

Slick Fork · #1 10-29-2007, 05:34 PM

If anyone has other recommendations I'd love to hear them. I've got some Chaeto right now but for whatever reason I can't seem to get it to grow as fast as I'd like and had heard that Caulpera was a much quicker growing macro to put in the sump. I currently have the sump lit with a 23 (or was it 27) watt CF light bulb.

Slick Fork · #2 10-29-2007, 05:42 PM

For those who are running grape, do you take any special measures to keep it out of your display? I've read that if you keep the photoperiod constant, there will be no percieved seasonal change to trigger it going sexual, anyone have any comments/experience on that? Is Grape Palatable to herbivores (i have a purple tang and a foxface, wondering if they would keep it under control in the event that it did get into the display)

Delphinus · #3 10-29-2007, 06:52 PM

In my experience it's a case of "they might or they might not, but they probably won't."

I've always kept my photoperiod constant and I had caulerpa and halimeda sporulate.

Basically there's really no control of sporulation - it either happens or it doesn't. The only thing you can do to mitigate the risk is keep pruning so that if it does sporulate, at least it's (hopefully) only a little bit of it that does.

I've found chaeto can be a frustratingly slow grower. One thing that I've found, it does seem to grow faster under brighter lights so you can consider adding some light (maybe a second CF, or a bigger CF, or something like that). Also I've noticed that it sometimes just sort of sits there and does nothing, but when it starts to grow boy does it suddenly take off on you. So it could be a case of that down the road it will be growing quickly for you.

There have been times I've been tempted to see if I could get some caulerpas again but I'm really not sure if there's a way to guarantee it doesn't spread into your main display. There are some neat caulerpa species though. I'd love to get my hands on some C. prolifera for example, looks almost like seagrass. I haven't seen any locally though... if you find some please let me know!

MikeP · #4 10-29-2007, 10:27 PM

I was told that if you keep it trimmed back you don't have to worry about any negative effects on the tank. I feed little bits to my Naso tang and he loves the stuff. I have Cheato and the caulerpa in my fuge, the caulerpa starts to grow into the cheato so I'm always moving the cheato so I don't end up with a big ball of two types of macro algae. They both seem to grow pretty good under my 55w PC light but I think a little more wattage would be better.

trilinearmipmap · #5 10-29-2007, 11:08 PM

My suggestion for growing any macro is to have the refugium downstream of the calcium reactor, I found when I got my calcium reactor my chaetomorpha growth improved, likely due to the CO2 in the calcium reactor effluent.

littlesilvermax · #6 10-29-2007, 11:30 PM

I had it about 6 years ago and it still shows up in my overflow. I hate it. I clean it out of my overflow one a year. I can bring some if you want some.

I just grow frags in my sump now for nutrient take-up and ph stability.

Slick Fork · #7 10-30-2007, 01:21 AM

Hmmmm,

Got 2 extremes, people love it or hate it. I wonder if my bioload is almost too low for good chaeto growth. I have a foxface, purple tang (neither full grown, probably about 5" each) as well as 2 ocellaris clowns in a 100gallon. The refugium intake is split with the skimmer so probably half gets skimmed before heading to the chaeto. I have a largish clump that's only doubled in size since say july or august.