Grape Calurpa die-off

[Guest Keyoke]

I had a sump full of grape calurpa that has been in my tank since the very beginning.. started out as a single strand attached to some LR I got when I was cycling my tank and grew to fill almost my full fuge area in my sump (about 10 gallons)

 

Now it's dying off, and rapidly. Just dissapears and I can't seem to figure out why. The only recent change is that I'd moved a rather large clump of Halimedia out of my display (softball sized clump) and down into the sump area..

 

The halimedia is growing like wildfire, which says something for my calcium levels I suppose, but the Calurpa is dying off _rapidly_ almost like it's dissolving.

 

Anyone have any ideas ? I wouldn't worry so much but I've discovered with the dieoff that the calupra was acting as a bubble trap for the outflow of the skimmer.. with it dying off like it is, it's not trapping the bubbles and my display looks like one in PetsMart when the water levels run low. It's horrible...

 

-Jeff

[emissary]

caulerpa die off = nutrient import

 

I think

 

not what you're looking for.

[xeon]

It is probably going asexual. That is a form of its reproduction. There is also a chance your lighting may need to be replaced. Either way, we do not want it happening in our tanks. When it does this, it releases its nutrients that it has sucked up in short order... not good. Grape Caulerpa is known to do this, that is why many people use chaeto or other types of Caulerpas that do not seem to do this as much.

[Lee Stearns]

Concur it will occur(dissolve) over about 3 days and then be totally gone releasing all its nutrients back into the water column- I grow grape only to feed to my tanks and use chaeto for nutrient export/ harvesting.