good or bad macroalgae

[ollie51]

Can someone please look at these pictures and tell me if this is good or bad macroalgae? It is starting to grow pretty rapidly. I am not sure whether I should rip it out or leave it alone.

 

[jezzeaepi]

Rip it out asap. Its caulerpa(sp?) and you are correct in that it grows very fast. Few things will graze on it, and its can spread quickly. Make sure to not let any pieces of it remain or it will come back. Unfortunetly its anchors itself very well and youll have to trim it all out several times =\

Good luck!

 

[Cajun Reefer]

ollie51,

Here's some good info I received from one of our fellow reefers (Curtswearing) on here when I was inquiring about nuisance algae.

Best of luck!
Dennis

Dennis,

Turn that frown upside down. All of us at one time will have to deal with a nuisance algae and they can be beaten.

If one is stiff (how I'm reading the word, "Firm") then it might be Cladophora. The exact ID doesn't really matter as you need to handle all 3 species in the same manner. Whatever you do, don't follow someones advice to trim and pull and yank this algae while it is in your tank unless it cannot be avoided. Even then, you must have a siphon running to catch algae that you miss.

Algae's can't run and hide when a predator comes to eat them. They have all designed defenses as a result. Some incorporate Calcium into their leaves like your caterpillar weed and money plant. Others develop secondary metabolites (toxins) like your Caulerpa prolifera. A third defense is fragmentation. (Remember, your pulling and trimming is not different from an herbivore eating an algae). The three mentioned above fragment into small pieces and float in the current when attacked. Anywhere a small fragment attaches will become a new patch of algae.....which is why you shouldn't trim this algae while it's in the tank.

It's easy to solve this problem. The next time you do a waterchange, save the old water in buckets. Put the rock with this hair algae in the bucket and manually pull the algae out in that 'old' water. Then rinse the rock off well with fresh saltwater before returning the rock to the tank. That way, the algae fragments get thrown out with the old water as opposed to floating around the tank.

Runners tend to indicate Caulerpa prolifera. Do the same thing with buckets and old water but make sure you are running granular activated carbon when you put that rock back into the tank. Caulerpa's will release toxins into the tank that carbon will remove.

That doesn't really look like valonia (bubble algae) to me but I cannot tell from the picture. I would just scrape it off the glass with your fingernail and throw it away. If it stays in one piece, put it in a small dish with some tank water and re-photograph it for a better ID.

Hakunna Matatta, Dennis. It means no worries. You'll get through this.

 

[Cajun Reefer]

It's easy to solve this problem. The next time you do a waterchange, save the old water in buckets. Put the rock with this algae in the bucket and manually pull the algae out in that 'old' water. Then rinse the rock off well with fresh saltwater before returning the rock to the tank. That way, the algae fragments get thrown out with the old water as opposed to floating around the tank. Also, make sure you are running activated carbon just in case any toxins are released in the tank.

 

[jezzeaepi]

Sorry I should have added that. You always want to remove the rock if possible and scrub the algae off out of the display. With the viney nature of caulerpa though thats not always possible =\

 

[Boomer]

That looks like Caulerpa racemosa, Grape algae


http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&q=Caulerpa%20racemosa&btnG=Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

 

[Murfman]

My Tangs and Rabbit fish love the stuff. I prune my fuge and feed it to them. (but that is Feather Caluerpa) They eat it feathers and stalk.

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N