What is your best Calerpia Eater?

Covey

Covey

New member
Everthing has been peachy in my tank since the switch almost a year ago. Everything is growing every thing is happy and it has been almost a year since anything died. Everything should be great but I had Calerpia taxfolia get into the system from when I use to run a fuge. It has been the biggest problem in the tank for me. I have to hand trim it with some foreceps to keep it at bay. It is not like I haven't tired to kill it off.

Nutrient Export:
Moderately high flow BB tank
2x Weekly small detritus siphon water changes
Month 25% WC
GFO

That barely slows it down. Few thing I have been trying recentily:

Added a Phosban reactor to make better use of the GFO
Tried the Bio Clean part of Proibio.

I just got the Phosban reactor so I have yet to see the out come. The Prodibio seem to help but not much. You dose it every two weeks and for like the first week it stalls out the calerpia growth.

If I were to try to stall out the calerpia completily thru nutrient export I would have to run Zeo or something. I would prefer to not pastel out all my acros and run an expesive complicated system. So I believe I need to focus on my fish.

Here is the crew:
Yellow Tang 5"
Blue hippo tang 3"
Lawnmower blennie 3"
Moorish Idol 5"
and 6 sm Green chromis

Part of the problem is feeding the Idol. He is like owning a Tang that only eats meat. Same constant hunger but he want mysis, krill and such. I feed two frozen cubes a day or less for a heavy exported 150G that is still not excessive IMO.

The catch. The Idol is a substraight picker and is not as agile as the Tangs and Chromis at picking food out of the water to feed him the other fish get a belly full. With a belly full of good food both the tangs don't really care to pick at the calerpia so it goes untouched.
I have been working on a way to target feed the Idol so the tang are forced to do there jobs but I have room for 1 or 2 more decent sized fish. I was thinking about 1 or 2 more Tangs or a Rabbitfish but they would have to fit into the group.

Any suggestions on what Tangs or Rabbits would be up for the job and fit in?
 
If it's taxifolia it could be tough since most fish would rather not eat it due to toxins, I would just keep No3 and Po4 as low as you can and keep manually removing it.
 
I already did that when I set the tank up. 80% of the rock was cooked. The other 20% had corals that I did not want to chip off. cooking stopped my hair algae from my last tank cold. Within two weeks of everything in the new tank the hair algae that I fought for over a year vanished. Rock cooking works but been there done that basically. What little calerpia was transfered has been the problem it doesn't take much when nothing is eating it.

To the best of my knowledge all calerpia has the toxin in it. As to the ID it is a feather calerpia not for sure weither it is C. taxifolia or C. prolifia.

It would be nice to find the Calerpia eating nudibrachs or that Calerpia eating snail that "Coral" was talking about last month but I have never found a source.
 
You should be able to tell which species it is by the leaves, Caulerpa Taxifolia has more of a feathered look and prolifera should be more of a solid leaf. Some species do have toxin but as far as I know none compare to the native version and even worse the modified type of Taxifolia
 
Did you notice this?

Care Level: Expert Only

If it becomes startled, it may release a purple dye to repel attacking fish. In the home aquarium, the Sea Hare will need a good chemical filter system to quickly remove this toxic dye before it causes problems.
 
I was just going to say. I almost would rather have the algae than risk that thing dying. better have lots of carbon
 
I believe Marcus had a diadema urchin that used to chew through his calurpa when he had a 75 gallon.

I myself killed the small amount I had by increasing my skimmer size and setting up a phosban reactor.

Chris
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9483971#post9483971 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mwood
Foxface, may or may not be reef safe.
Click to expand...

At least locally I have had a problem finding healthy ones that are not half starved to death. I have had them on two different occasions only to have them die in the first two weeks.

Their on the list as the scribbled I had briefily seemed to like the calerpia I would just have to find a fat one.
 
Actaually, you want one that goes after your calurpa. I just took some calurpa around to the LFS's and got permission to toss it in the tank. The foxface that ate it was the winner.
 
The bad part is the 2 tangs you have aren't really good algea eaters. Sadly almost every nice tank you see has yellow or blue tangs in them...mostly for the colors. I've had really good luck with powder brown's, sailfins, and currently my kole (which they say is hard to keep and usually gets ich easier than the other types of tangs). I honestly think any of those three help, if you could keep the two you have from fighting with a new fish.

On feeding the idol, maybe you could get some regular shrimp at the super market. Cut it to the size the idol will eat and then freeze it. These chunks can later be thawed out and "target" fed if you will to the idol. I know Sone has a niffty little rod thing he uses to feed his triggers. Might be possible to use something like that. HTH Jason
 
I have been trying to teach him to hand feed but he is still a tad skiddish for that. I got him to eat a NLS jumbo pellet out of the forceps that was pretty cool.

I also figured out he can see better in the dark than the tangs and I feed him with just the room lights on. He finds the food but the Yellow Tang blindly swims around in the dark with no clue.

One of the reason I got the Yellow tang in the first place was to eat the calerpia. "Coral" had it listed as part of there natural diet. Go figure.
 
What do you guys think of the algae eating abilities of the tang I actually wanted?

Powder Blue
Or
Naso (the grey common one)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9484184#post9484184 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tibbs2
I believe Marcus had a diadema urchin that used to chew through his calurpa when he had a 75 gallon.

I myself killed the small amount I had by increasing my skimmer size and setting up a phosban reactor.

Chris
Click to expand...

I was wondering if the long spine urchin worked?

My tank is already urchin proof but I have heard there not 100% SPS safe.
 
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