WOW! major growth!

[Mobious]

Last Sunday I bought some grape caluerpa and put it in my refugium... Well yesterday I thought I noticed some new growth but wasnt sure.. So last night before I went to bed, I marked on the side of my sump the ends of a few branches.. Well this morning, I found a few branches had grown about 1/2"

Yall told me this stuff grew fast but geez. One good thing, I know my tang loves the stuff. [img]/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

[G4THI]

Hi,
I've had mine for about 2 months and you can can almost see it grow. My light is on 24/7 but of all my caluerpa this is the only one which seems to get bits dying off at regular intervals (going sexual I guess), so keep an eye on it.

[Mobious]

Will do..

I though keeping your light on 24/7 prevented it from going sexual. I also head/read that if it does go sexual your water will turn green and your tank might crash..

Once my little refugium is wall to wall or maybe just before.. I will trim it back and put the exess in my tank for my tang..


I got home today and it had grown another 1/4".. hahahah

[G4THI]

I also thought 24/7 would help prevent it going sexual. My 12g refugium only has a 15w light, so maybe it should be larger. So far only small quantities ahve died off and I've not noticed any green in my 150g tank. I suspect to make any major effect on the main tank the refugium would need to have a major crash, one good reason to keep the skimmer running, just in case.

[asmith]

If you don't keep it pruned back it will go sexual on you.I recently let mine go for awhile and it went sexual in the tank. You couldn't see through to the back of the tank. It has never done that when I kept it trimmed back.

JME,
Andrew

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I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart. e.e.cummings

[Abet]

Hi, G4THI, you might want to check this and other boards about the effects of running a skimmer and growing caulerpa. I read somewhere that running a skimmer will deprive your macros with the nutrients it needs to fluorish which may explain some of your die-offs.
However, I would not totally shut off the skimmer, I would do it gradually.
I chose to grow caulerpa in my 30 and 75 refugium and get a really good lighting system for my 180 instead of a skimmer.

[G4THI]

Hi Abet,
we are a few years behind you with reef stuff here in the uk so were still learning, but with regards to turning off the skimmer I've seen a few comments going both ways. Most of the time mine doesn't skim anything much off now so my thinking is isn't moving all the good stuff out. Also leaving it on may help with anything unexpected as well as help oxygenate the water. I may be wrong ? As asmith said I may need to do a little more trimming

[Jefe12234]

When caulerpa goes sexual, the whole clump will usually die (with the exception of a few deep roots which will grow back). It happened to me once. If little parts of it are dying, G4THI, I would also suspect that you don't have enough lighting for it to really flourish. I just upgraded the 30 watts over my sump to 65. Hopefully it will really take off now.

[G4THI]

Hi Jefe,
When I said little parts, I mean't to say a whole piece of single caulerpa rather than little parts of it. It's only happened a few times, but I'm not to worrried as I manage to harvest many many times more than dies off.