Caulerpa going away

Cyclura · 04-08-2007, 03:27 PM

This is mainly directed towards carmijo but id like anyone's opinion. The caulerpa macro algae colony that carmie sent me was big a beautiful, now it seems like the bunch gets smaller every day. Small bits of it break off from the seahorses hitching to it and they either disperse into the tank where i cant find them or into the filter. All i did was stick the bunch into a crevice in the live rock and now its down to an extremely small "pinch" of macro. Will this start to grow? I just dont want it to all go into the filter or something and one day be gone. My flow is very low, 160 GPH for a 29gal tank.

any ideas?

**CarmieJo** · 04-08-2007, 06:58 PM

Mine is in the sump under pretty high flow and it grows FAST. I started out with about a cup of it a few months ago and now, despite rigorous pruning, it fills a 10x10 area in my sump. Maybe until it gets a foothold you could try to protect it from your ponies hitching to it. Maybe one of the seahorse people has a better idea though.

**Seahorsedreams** · 04-08-2007, 08:37 PM

What kind of lights do you have again?

**CarmieJo** · 04-08-2007, 08:51 PM

Mine is under a 6500K PC from Home Depot.

**wwest** · 04-08-2007, 09:05 PM

My macro is under 2-10k T-5's. I have to trim probably once a month or sometimes sooner. I have Caulipra, Halimeda, Chaetomorpha, and Red Feather. The feather and the Halimeda doesn't grow that fast but the Chaeto and Caulipra does. Hopfully as soon as i can find some i will have sea lettuce too.

I had a 65w 10k PC and the stuff didn't grow that fast. I changed it and it did so i would say check your light and it will probably grow fairly well but it needs to have a good amount of flow so not sure how that would work in a horse tank.

**Seahorsedreams** · 04-08-2007, 09:10 PM

What temp did you get your tank at Carmie? Probably lower than Adams. It's an adjustment thing I'm sure.

Hers is also an older established tank... things do better in established tanks.

I prune my grape 1 to 2 times a week.

**CarmieJo** · 04-08-2007, 09:35 PM

I keep my tank at 79. I prune it a couple times a week.

**Seahorsedreams** · 04-09-2007, 12:15 AM

I'm sure it's not liking the drop in temp then either.

But that's not the only cause... I grab stuff out of the hot tank and put it into a cold tank all of the time. But shipping stress, water diferences, light diference, nutrient differences mixed with temp differences. It's hard to acclimate.