Ratvan
Member
Gorgeous tank and love the fish selection
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Journal The Mermaid’s Rockpool Garden
- Thread starter shangman
- Start date
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- Tags
- liverock macroalgae marine
Those pics looks stunning . . . we need to see more!!!
Absolutely typical... I should rename this journal Trouble in Paradise
Last night while photographing this tank I thought to myself... hmm, some of that caulerpa algae looks a bit dodgy there, must remember to take it all out tonight.
Then I went to upload my photos, and thought... ahh, let's write a blog post, that's a good idea. And the algae was forgot...
So of course, I woke up this morning to a tank of pea soup! All of this one type of caulerpa, which was quite a lot, has gone sexual and melted over night. I’ve added some extra bags of carbon to help soak up some of the stuff (actually took the above photo at lunch time and it’s already much clearer than it was this morning), and added some Seachem Prime in case there’s an ammonia spike.
Right, off to get some RO for a water change... 🙄
Last night while photographing this tank I thought to myself... hmm, some of that caulerpa algae looks a bit dodgy there, must remember to take it all out tonight.
Then I went to upload my photos, and thought... ahh, let's write a blog post, that's a good idea. And the algae was forgot...
So of course, I woke up this morning to a tank of pea soup! All of this one type of caulerpa, which was quite a lot, has gone sexual and melted over night. I’ve added some extra bags of carbon to help soak up some of the stuff (actually took the above photo at lunch time and it’s already much clearer than it was this morning), and added some Seachem Prime in case there’s an ammonia spike.
Right, off to get some RO for a water change... 🙄
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I remember those good old days! 😂
Not sure if I've explained this here before or not, but for those not in the marine-know...
The macroalgae/seaweed that went sideways today is Caulerpa Taxifolia. When in non-ideal conditions, some types of macroalgae - particularly the green caulerpa macroalgaes - decide to "go sexual" - which basically means they disintergrate into a lot of tiny "spores" with the hope that these spores will float away across the sea and find more ideal conditions for growth. When this happens, they also release all the nutrients they've held into the water column, which can be bad for the creatures of the tank - in the sea, nutrients are very low. Thankfully (or rather... practically) I only keep quite robust creatures now.
Today all my other macros are fine - I have two other species of caulerpa in the tank, Caulerpa prolifera and Caulerpa brachypus which haven't melted. They will probably take over now the dominant Taxifolia's current reign has ended. I've never had more than one algae go sexual on me at once, it's just one type almost all at once (maybe 5% survives), and eventually the remaining small tufts regrow well.
Every macroalgae has different conditions in which it thrives. I find my green caulerpas do best in the summer with the higher light from the North-facing window behind the tank, and suffer in the winter. My reds are usually the opposite - they do better in winter with lower light. However some are very tough and just grow well whenever (Halimeda and Red Gracilaria Hayi) There are also variations in growth from the amount of nutrients added to the tank, I used to dose but I’ve found I don't really need to add extra nutrients as the food provides enough, the I do a big waterchange once a month to replenish the micronutrients. Almost all of the macroalgaes seem to have boom and bust cycles beyond my comprehension, and luckily I keep enough types that there's always a few booming and making the tank look great.
I used to have the beautiful bubble-y macroalgae Caulerpa racemosa, which would boom and bust constantly, but thankfully I always caught it and took out the bad stuff. Sadly one day after a glorious boom it had a massive bust and no parts recovered… I can't seem to find it for sale anywhere else any more so I guess that is a common problem.
At some point I'll go through all the different macroalgaes I've kept so far, so if anyone wants to start their own they know which ones to try first.
Anyway, water changed now and looking much more respectable again, if a little bald in places. Think I've got away with it this time!
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Im slightly obsessed with this tank at the moment Rosie and have visions of recreating something similar, then i remember how unforgiving marine can be and settle back into enjoying it vicariously.💙
Great idea to list the macros you have had and your experience with them, could be attached to a how to article of settling up a marine macro algae tank 😛🤓
Great idea to list the macros you have had and your experience with them, could be attached to a how to article of settling up a marine macro algae tank 😛🤓
To be honest I don't make it easy for myself, I have thrown myself into it and can't seem to stop myself (or my dad who I inherited this addiction to natural things from who just loves keeping unusual things) from collecting all the weird little alien plants and creatures of the sea, half of which have very strict requirements and a few of which are rather poisonous. The next part of this journal is where I make a list of catastrophes its been through in the past year and a half since I last updated! On reflection, all of them were totally avoidable ... but I just didn't know and there wasn't much info about it.
Now I've made most of the mistakes, I can say that there's definitely much easier versions of marine/macroalgae tanks to keep, I'll get around to making an article about it some time. I would say its difficulty is around the same as hightech CO2. It's completely worthwhile, the alien beauty of these types of tanks really can't be beaten, and I've learnt so much about how the sea works.
