Saltliquid
New member
Some years back I needed some help on algae as I suspected things but didn’t really know or was able to put functions names to what was going on.
I knew caulerpa was quite mazing but the caulerpenyne found in the sap of all caulerpa species was quite strong in the ones you could get in shops and the more common types I would see in rock pools as well.
This defence chemical I always called the algae’s pesticide/herbicide, “not knowing its real name back then”, this made it dam hard to find one that has it in a less toxic consistency and will get on with all symbiotic life!
I got in touch with a lady marine biologist that teaches our up and coming biologists up north and she and her counter parts in the states were of a great deal of help on caulerpa then the governments associate on all algae issues, so it all came together after these folks helped out and the herbariums associate the gov refers to on algae actually gave me an ID from my super macro pics I sent of this algae and its name that my wife found some 4 or 5 years back.
It seems my wife had found a rare morph of the most morphic and sensitive caulerpa algae known at this stage!
So the experiments that went on back a ways and always failed for over 10 years finally we found that one special caulerpa to get these monster single celled algae to act the same as the micro single celled phytoplankton, of which imports near everything and converts to harmless and valuable substances.
It was roughly 5 years ago at the bayside my wife and i were hunting around the shore line pools with the dogs and she called out “here is some algae” she knew I am always on the hunt for that special algae that I knew had to be there “some where!”, I looked at it sort of and said no that’s the same as usual and took the piece from her hand and looked closely and no I have never seen this one!
It just happened I had set up a system that will rely on algae to run it and so far had no decent alga to do that job, until this one!
It was mid winter when she found it and holly smoke it was working, no toxins that I could see affecting anything else, with in one month no phos showing on a test and the usual affects from corals toxins were not showing and when I trimmed it the first time I was so worried that its sap would do what taxifolia sap always does and nope, it did what I had always hoped for.
A few months of total success and I put it all over the net and got laughed at, which is not unusual for what I do with my hobby, lol.
Then summer temps came along and I had not put the chiller on yet and it all started dieing, hell!!!! What have I done??!!!, I am killing it and did not put two and two together with the heat doing this until I had near none alive and transferred the tiny bits left to the tubs that run cooler and it started coming back and that’s when I realised the heat was its down fall, 25c and it starts failing and begins dieing slowly or quickly depending, at 26c!
Through the coming months I learnt a **** load about how this algae works and thought I would go back to where it was at near a house block sized area and it was all gone, summer temps had killed it there as well.
This variation of racemosa is only rarely found in SEQ and from time to time its original that it morphs from is found here and there, but this actual morph, I have not seen it since in the wild!
So as you can imagine, I look after it carefully!!!
Myself and Danny were free diving a little while back at a coolish water site that doesn’t get the warmer waters very often in summer and the original was there in bucket loads! But with a very close look, you can tell that it’s not the morph my wife found!
I knew caulerpa was quite mazing but the caulerpenyne found in the sap of all caulerpa species was quite strong in the ones you could get in shops and the more common types I would see in rock pools as well.
This defence chemical I always called the algae’s pesticide/herbicide, “not knowing its real name back then”, this made it dam hard to find one that has it in a less toxic consistency and will get on with all symbiotic life!
I got in touch with a lady marine biologist that teaches our up and coming biologists up north and she and her counter parts in the states were of a great deal of help on caulerpa then the governments associate on all algae issues, so it all came together after these folks helped out and the herbariums associate the gov refers to on algae actually gave me an ID from my super macro pics I sent of this algae and its name that my wife found some 4 or 5 years back.
It seems my wife had found a rare morph of the most morphic and sensitive caulerpa algae known at this stage!
So the experiments that went on back a ways and always failed for over 10 years finally we found that one special caulerpa to get these monster single celled algae to act the same as the micro single celled phytoplankton, of which imports near everything and converts to harmless and valuable substances.
It was roughly 5 years ago at the bayside my wife and i were hunting around the shore line pools with the dogs and she called out “here is some algae” she knew I am always on the hunt for that special algae that I knew had to be there “some where!”, I looked at it sort of and said no that’s the same as usual and took the piece from her hand and looked closely and no I have never seen this one!
It just happened I had set up a system that will rely on algae to run it and so far had no decent alga to do that job, until this one!
It was mid winter when she found it and holly smoke it was working, no toxins that I could see affecting anything else, with in one month no phos showing on a test and the usual affects from corals toxins were not showing and when I trimmed it the first time I was so worried that its sap would do what taxifolia sap always does and nope, it did what I had always hoped for.
A few months of total success and I put it all over the net and got laughed at, which is not unusual for what I do with my hobby, lol.
Then summer temps came along and I had not put the chiller on yet and it all started dieing, hell!!!! What have I done??!!!, I am killing it and did not put two and two together with the heat doing this until I had near none alive and transferred the tiny bits left to the tubs that run cooler and it started coming back and that’s when I realised the heat was its down fall, 25c and it starts failing and begins dieing slowly or quickly depending, at 26c!
Through the coming months I learnt a **** load about how this algae works and thought I would go back to where it was at near a house block sized area and it was all gone, summer temps had killed it there as well.
This variation of racemosa is only rarely found in SEQ and from time to time its original that it morphs from is found here and there, but this actual morph, I have not seen it since in the wild!
So as you can imagine, I look after it carefully!!!
Myself and Danny were free diving a little while back at a coolish water site that doesn’t get the warmer waters very often in summer and the original was there in bucket loads! But with a very close look, you can tell that it’s not the morph my wife found!
