My morning mess....
 

I woke up this morning to see my 20g kitchen tank looking like a swamp. Upon closer examination it appears that my grape caulerpa went sexual over night. It has been growing like a weed over the last few weeks, and everything in the tank has been doing well. I have just read this morning that change in temp, lighting and lack of pruning could lead to this happening. Being there hasnt been a change in temp or light, my lack of pruning may be the cause. I did a large water change and switched out the carbon, so now i wait and watch. I also removed the caulerpa. The tank is still cloudy but im hoping that settles out through the day, if not perhaps I need to do another water change.

My Grape Caulerpa did the same thing yesterday. It had pretty much taken over my nano (poor tank has been ignored for a few months), and I stole the heater from the tank overnight when I broke another one so the temp dropped 4 degrees. That's enough for the Caulerpa to have sexy time. The Zoas were all shriveled up, the fish had clamped fins and were hiding, it looked like someone poured milk in the tank. It was actually quite foggy seeing as the tank is so small. I did a 50% waterchange, no carbon, fish were happy by the afternoon. Today it's clear and the Zoas are most of the way happy again.

Good to hear that your tank is on the rebound today. It was certainly not what i expected to be dealing with this morning, thats for sure. The two fish in my tank seem ok at this point, fingers crossed. Did you remove all of the caulerpa from your tank?

Are you growing caulerpa on purpose? Just curious.



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Yes I removed as much Caulerpa as I could peel off as I was finally forced into giving the tank some attention. :lol: Kien, I'm not growing it on purpose...it went rampant in my nano. The nano's been a mess for 6 months.

I was expecting it to happen, but hoping it wouldn't because I had better things to do. :rolleyes:

[quote=kien;638130]Are you growing caulerpa on purpose? Just curious.

I originally started growing the caulerpa for our ember blenny. He was a very picky eater and would not eat prepared food. So I started growing it in my kitchen tank to make sure I had a steady suppy for him to dine on. Unfortunately Spidey died in july :cry::cry: ... so after this mornings events I have since removed all of the caulerpa.

IME, oxygen is the biggest thing to worry about in this instance, after of course a couple good water changes.

I have had this happen to me a number of times as I usually use macro algae for filtration in all my nano set ups.

I have found that adding an airstone or an extra pump at the waters surface until things clear up really helps everything get back back to normal.

thanks for the input gobytron.... I actually left the water level down a bit after the water change so that my powerhead is creating more surface movement. the tank looks alot better but is still a bit cloudy. I am considering another water change later today.

It's not toxic. I had the same thing hapening to me many times with my feather caulerpa and the aquarium was all milky and cloudy but all my SPS had great polyp extension the whole time as if they enjoyed this as a feast.

It never bothered anything in my tank, not the coral nor the fish, and I never did any water change when it happen. I simply let the skimmer take it out.