hopefully averted a crisis??

[sharuq1]

I was doing some research today trying to learn about caulerpa going sexual as my whatever it is caulerpa looks odd today. I am not sure of the scientific name of it, as so many sites seem to have misclassified it and don't agree on a name. It looks alot like grape, but it isn't.

When it first grows it kind of looks like little flat-ish discs on a stalk, and these discs eventually balloon out. Anyway, I looked into my tank and I saw the tops look varigated and a bit whitish. I am thinking bad sign. Then after the site gazing-- I looked close and there are..oh crap...the little claw-looking things that a site said were a precursor to going sexual (something to do with gametes). The site warned if I saw those things to pull the caulerpa out immediately and had a pic below it showing the ruins of a cloudy tank in the aftermath.

I pulled all of it that I could see out. A few pieces did fall off and disappear into the tank though... :S Do you think things will be ok? I am guessing it will still grow back from what root structures are left.... Any advice here? I run a bit of floss, a bag of carbon (changed weekly), phosguard and purigen, fyi. (need to change the purigen asap though, it looks brownish yellow)

[Delphinus]

Caulerpa sporulating on you ("going sexual") isn't really the end of the world, but it is a nuisance. It's not great of course either, so if you can avoid it, that's better. But usually a water change and some carbon does clear it up and the new growth sucks back any nitrates or phosphates that get released.

It's better to be proactive on the pruning so that if any does go on you, only a little bit as opposed to a lot would let go on you.

Unfortunately there are other reasons beyond sporulation that caulerpa, particularly in a main tank, is undesirable, such as allelopathy (for lack of a better way to describe it, think "chemical warfare") - allelopathy is one organisms ability to inhibit growth of a neighbouring competing organism - and according to Borneman anyhow, caulerpa can inhibit growth of SPS. So, it's better to keep it contained in a refugium separate from the main tank (even then, probably not a 100% defense, but, at least it's contained somewhere).

You're right, it will probably come back. You can pretty much decimate the stuff by going pruning crazy on it and it will undoubted still come back.