id plant

[Toni217]

Please id plant. should this be in my tank? what should i do the fish is not eating it

[Samper]

I believe it is a macroalga. I don't know for sure but possibly Caulerpa Racemosa. I don't know much about it but I like to keep most of the macroalgae confined to the refugium.

[zhenya]

Please id plant. should this be in my tank? what should i do the fish is not eating it

Hi Toni,

It is a Caulerpa racemosa, a pretty invasive algae if you let it take hold in your tank. People keep it in their refugiums but I personally avoid any caulerpa like a plague... If fish doesn't eat it I would just chuck it into a garbage bin.
Certain herbivorous fish will eat it, some rabbitfishes and sergeonfishes eat some but not enough of it to keep it under control if you let it take hold in your aquarium. And not the least of all things, some species of caulerpa produces certain chemicals that may retard coral growth. They do it to compete for space and to deter predation by fishes to some degree.
Check this Caulerpa identification keys
here

You can get a lot more reading material for it if you run a google search using caulerpa as your keyword.

[Toni217]

Thanks for getting back 2 me,
Gene i looked that up and it is caulerpa racermosa. But with one question. i don't want to seem dumb but heard of refugiums what is the purpose of having one and why put caulerpa in it?
thanks
Toni

[zhenya]

Thanks for getting back 2 me,
Gene i looked that up and it is caulerpa racermosa. But with one question. i don't want to seem dumb but heard of refugiums what is the purpose of having one and why put caulerpa in it?
thanks
Toni

I promise you, no one thinks you are dumb, Toni, just because you don't know what refugiums are for or why people use caulerpa in it. People, including myself, use algae in a refugium to absorb excess nutrients that this algae need for growth( nitrogen and phosphorous), and as it grows you can remove part of it an essence removing nutrients with it. In other words, you are exporting nutrients via biomass.
I'll look up some links for you to read on the subject and add them here.
Refugiums, as a word, came from the word refuge, and was used from the start for growing tiny crustaceans and other small organisms that otherwise would be eaten before before their population could be established. As their numbers grow they slowly migrated into display tanks and provided food for certain fish(like the mandarin fishes). Later on people started to grow caulerpa to help in removing dissolved organics from the aquariums, as I described earlier in the post.
If you ever decide to use refugium for these purpose I recommend using Chaetomorpha for this purpose. It almost never goes sexual( matures and sporulate to reproduce) and grows extremely fast if you provide brisk flow and good lighting for it. And it grows in a form of a ball and don;t really hold on any substrate. It is best grown suspended in the water in the refugium.

HTH.

[Toni217]

Thank you HTH, i am looking forward to the read up on the subject. I am glad it was not a stupid question. Thanks again

Toni

[zhenya]

Hi Toni,

Here's a couple articles written by Anthony Calfo for our ezine RHO, when we had it.
http://www.reefland.com/rho/1104/main.php
http://www.reefland.com/rho/0105/main2.php

Also, HTH means "hope this helps" and is not my name...
Here's a link for you yo get familiar with the lingo...
Abbreviations for new guys.