what eats macro's?

[sushi1517]

I think I have some caulerpa on my LR and need to know what SMALL fish or inverts eat it? lawnmower blenny, scarlet and blue hermit crabs? I had a HUGE tank takeover of this stuff and traded out rocks with a fellow reefer so get rid of it but he had a small bit of another caulerpa on his rocks I now have. He had tangs so it helped him out. my tanks 16 gal so big fish are a NO go.

 

[tektite]

A tank that small manual removal is probably your best solution. Not many things eat caulerpa to begin with, no small ones come to mind.

 

[sushi1517]

I have had a total tank takeover trying to ''manually remove it'' it does NOT work at all it is all right back in a day. I traded my rocks out with another guy and its starting to sprout some on it too. I have tried taking it out with tweezer and manually removing it but I have found tons of spots not just one. I cant do it. I have to find something to get rid of it. .. im desperate!

 

[sushi1517]

this is how it used to look when it got out of control. I had to remove it every other day just to keep it in check. in this pic it was let go for a little bit. but as you can see took over everything. I wonder if people have tried mollies eating macro??

 

[mcdonous]

Mollies will eat some micro algae but don't touch any of my macros.

It looks like you have some sort of Caulerpa like Caulerpa brachypus or maybe more then one kind. brachypus is near impossibel to manually remove because the "stems" are so thin and fragile.

I would look into Hydrogen peroxide treatment if I was you.

-Steve

 

[AtomicMonster]

I'd say just turn your rocks upside down and put more corals on top of it that spread fast like a pumpin xenia till they are gone

 

[tektite]

That is terrible advice. It'll never work, and even if the op wanted to trade one weed for another like xenia, no coral in the universe outgrows caulerpa.

 

[sushi1517]

im sure to get the tang police but. . im convinced there is nothing more I can do but to get a tiny 1" tang and let it do its thing and then rehome it using it just for its eating advantages . I have replaced ALL of my rocks and now the new rock have what looks like the same thing. the guy had tangs that traded me and didn't have visable macro on it until a day or 2 later and now its taking off again. im scared to harm my corals with dipping the rocks in peroxide.

 

[tektite]

Given that kind of caulerpa, a tang won't be a permanent solution either. It won't be able to get any holdfasts in tiny cracks/holes in the rock, and once the tang is gone the algae will come back. If you kept the same tank water and sand when you swapped out the rock, the caulerpa could have come back from that instead of the new rock.

 

[Rapture2]

+1---

 

[Subsea]

im sure to get the tang police but. . im convinced there is nothing more I can do but to get a tiny 1" tang and let it do its thing and then rehome it using it just for its eating advantages . I have replaced ALL of my rocks and now the new rock have what looks like the same thing. the guy had tangs that traded me and didn't have visable macro on it until a day or 2 later and now its taking off again. im scared to harm my corals with dipping the rocks in peroxide.

Macro will be effected by H2O2 before it harms coral. If you want to eradicate the macro, remove the offending rock and isolate it in a 5G bucket. Add hydrogen peroxide to this known volumn of water. Google probiotic disenfectant of live rock to get recommended limits.
Be sure that hydrogen peroxide in excess will bleach everything on the rock.
Patrick

 

[Subsea]

Emerald Crab will eat Caulerpa and every other macro that goes into the tank.
Patrick

 

[Biotopes]

Given that kind of caulerpa, a tang won't be a permanent solution either. It won't be able to get any holdfasts in tiny cracks/holes in the rock, and once the tang is gone the algae will come back. If you kept the same tank water and sand when you swapped out the rock, the caulerpa could have come back from that instead of the new rock.

Many macro's reproduce asexually by putting out spores into the water column, and those are microscopic, so no getting rid of those.

 

[mussel and hate]

Centropyge enjoy macros.

 

[Mattewell]

Why not just roll with it? Maybe a macro dominated tank would look cool? I think if you wanted to get rid of it at this point, it would require a teardown.

 

[klwheat]

I added a foxface to mine (90 gallon) when I had this problem. It was gone in 3 days. They get too big for your tank, but if you house a small one temporarily, that might work.

 

[Jackwkahn]

sea hares love caulerpa

 

[Plantbrain]

That is terrible advice. It'll never work, and even if the op wanted to trade one weed for another like xenia, no coral in the universe outgrows caulerpa.

+1 on that, no way that happen.

Looks lie the weed got out of hand, remove the rock, pick and clean every bit you can and reattach the corals. Or set aside and use as a filter or live rock cure tank for a month or so, that should kill it if there's no light.

Subsea's methods will work well, the live rock will quickly re establish.
Had this occur due to a refuge light issue, so put the macros in the main tank.
So I was able to remove the light in the main tank since I'd not put the coral in just yet to that tank and moved the macros to the fuge.