Path: utzoo!hoptoad!uunet!peregrine!ccicpg!leo!harald
From: harald@leo.UUCP ( Harald Milne)
Newsgroups: alt.aquaria
Subject: Re: Fresh water plants (and marine too!)
Message-ID: <3036@leo.UUCP>
Date: 5 May 88 09:26:51 GMT
References: <317@unisv.UUCP> <3599@gryphon.CTS.COM> <399@bacchus.DEC.COM> <411@bacchus.DEC.COM>
Organization: CCI CPD (Advanced Development), Irvine CA
Lines: 68

In article <411@bacchus.DEC.COM>, gringort@decwrl.dec.com (Joel Gringorten) writes:
>>	BTW, I had a near tank disaster with a strain of caulerpa that looks
>>like a fern plant. (The leaves). Under certain conditions, this kind of
>>caulerpa goes into "algea bloom". The entire chain turns a translucent white
>>and dies. The tank turns into greenish color, and is severely polluted. I
>>doubt an undergravel filtration system would have the capacity to handle this
>>level of pollution. Just a warning.
> 
> Yup, I had the same experience with that same type of caulerpa.  Fortunately,
> I have a high capacity filtration system, and my tank water never got
> polluted. 
> 
> What I'm trying to determine is what the "certain conditions" are that
> cause massive die-offs of caulerpa.

    Unknown presently. There were numerous discussions in Goerge Smit's series
of articles in FAMA regarding his reef system. From what I can remeber, one
suspected cause is a sudden change in salinity. This might happen during a
water exchange or a "topping off" to replenish evaporated water. 

    There was also mention of detection of this condition, and even methods
of staving off the death of the entire chain.

    If you want, beat me over the head, and I'll try to find the specific
issue(s) that deal with this topic.

> My theory
> is that a heavy growth of a strain of caulerpa, depletes the supply of 
> whatever it is that they thrive on.

    I thought this just slowed the growth. I don't know for sure.

> When the nutrients get exausted,
> the caulerpa dies.  One solution might be to keep it pruned back to
> a reasonable level.

    That would aleviate the demand for nutrition.

> This will also prevenet a massive tank pollution
> should the stuff decide to croak one day.  My system has a very light
> fish load, and my nitrate levels are immeassurably low.

    Hmmm. That's interesting. Nitrates immeassurably low? How do you test
for nitrates? What methods of water management do you use?

    Water exchanges never eliminate nitrates, just dilute the level.

    Delicatetly throttled denitrators can remove ALL nitrates. Is that
what you use?

> Hence my experimentation with the algae suppliments.  
> 
> Since my "Fern" caulpera croaked, I've been keeping only a type of
> caulerpa that has leaves like pine needles.  It's doing well, and
> when it dies, it seem to decay at a slower rate than the fern.

    I had this too. The entire chain died, hence the species.

> Anybody know the correct names for these caulerpas? 

    Again, there are articles in FAMA that showed picture with names. I
bitched about the lack of proper names a while back, but now I think this
was a bad idea. You can't relate unless people know what the hell you 
are talking about. Except bioligists.
-- 
Work: Computer Consoles Inc. (CCI), Advanced Development Group (ADG)
      Irvine, CA (RISCy business!) 
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