Different Caulerpas going sexual
Different Caulerpas going sexual
Okay, here is what I can offer based on experience. We have been collecting and holding about four different types of Caulerpas. I have observed many differences in growth rates and reproduction traits. The Caulerpa prolifera is the Caulerpa we have had the most experience with. We have collected, grown, held and sold Caulerpa prolifera for over four years now. The Caulerpa racemosa has been collected for about 2 years and the paspaliodes, some feather, and some razor, for about 1 year.
I must add this disclaimer: I do not "try" to grow any of the macro algaes as of yet. I would like to expand our operation to include aquacultured macros in the near future, but for now it's strictly collect, hold, sell. With that said, I can say that the Caulerpa prolifera is without a doubt the hardiest of the aformentioned Caulerpas. It will withstand a large variation of salinities, temperatures, and flow rates.
In the last four years I have seen the Caulerpa prolifera "go sexual" twice. The first time was in a display aquarium in the store I operated in Cocoa. It was a 55 gal. fish only aquarium with some live rock. When I closed shop one evening all was fine. When I opened the next morning the aquarium was bright green in color. I proceeded to do a 50% water change, and discovered that the Caulerpa was gone. I refilled the aquarium, and within two hours the water was crystal clear and all remaining inhabitants were fine.
The other experience I had of witnessing prolifera "going sexual", was while collecting it. I will usually collect prolifera 2 or 3 times per week. I had collected prolifera on say, a Monday. When I had gone back to the same spot to collect more on say, a Wednesday, it was gone. There had been approximately an acre of substrate that was completely covered with prolifera. The entire acre was gone within two days. In the wild there were no apparent reprocussions. The water was still clear in that area, there were no signs of stressed or dieing fish nearby. In both cases, my best guess for why the prolifera had chosen to "go sexual" was overcrowding. The 55 gal. display tank had roughly three to four lbs. of prolifera, and the area in the wild had patches of prolifera growing on top of itself.
When Caulerpa is used as a nutrient exporter it takes nutrients from the water and converts them into food. Therefore,
when it goes sexual it converts its chloroplasts (cells the Caulerpa used to make its food) into gametes. These gametes, if left without doing a partial water change, will die off and cause a higher nutient concentration. The sexual reproduction of Caulerpa itself DOES NOT release nutrients into the water.
Since we've been collecting the paspaloides we have not seen it "go sexual" yet. It does however have a different growth pattern than prolfera. Paspaloides will grow on a long runner sending shoots up every so often. Each shoot will have about four or five leaf structures on top. The paspaloides is very gelatinous, which is to say it will "bleed" quite a bit when damaged. It's growth compared to prolifera is slower and more self controlling. Depending on aquarium conditions, paspaloides will grow in one direction and die off from the other. If conditions are super, paspaloides may send up two new shoots as the oldest shoot dies off. If conditions are fair the rate is equal, one new shoot, one dead shoot. Paspaloides is a very attractive Caulerpa, and safe enough to use in a display tank without herbivourous animals. It may not grow fast enough to use as a highly effective nutrient exporter in a 'fuge.
For highly effective nutrient exportation to be used in a refugium, my opinion is that Caulerpa prolifera is by far the best refugium nutrient exporting macro to use. It must be pruned depending on it's growth, but you won't find a large surface area macro or faster growing macro anywhere suitable for refugium use. In my opinion the next best refugium macro would possibly be Chaetomorpha. Chaetomorpha does have a fast growth rate when conditions are right for each specific type of Chaeto. But that's another story.
Prolifera is very stable, hardy, and safe to use for any fish only with live rock aquarium. I cannot say with experience what it may or may not do to different types of corals, but I would suspect with a good skimmer, sump and or refugium, there could be no ill effects to corals either. Paspaloides is a very safe, hardy and beautiful macro for use as decore in a display or a refugium.
I'm still looking for more Caulerpa prolifera experiences on this forum. We've had mostly just good comments or experiences, I'm waiting to see some terrible horrifying experiences.
John
. I would like to point out that Polychaete recently showed both quick wits and a great deal of caring when another reefer, who was out of town, was informed his sump wasn't working by his mom. Polychaete quickly alerted this RC member's local reef club to come to his rescue (it was a Kalk-encrusted pump impeller that froze up).
