I have a three year old reef tank and I have researched macro algae’s and I decided to purchase a few for my tank. I got a frag of Caulerpa, halimenda, and a shaving brush. They have arrived just two days ago so I’m not too worried because I’m sure it could be stress from shipping but I’m getting nervous as they appear to be losing color. My Caulerpa looks ok but the tips of a few strands are looking clear and my other two frags have a very white tint to most of them. What should I do? All the parameters in my tank are normal and I have put some seachem flourish tabs in my sand bed near them in case there is a lack of nutrients, however my nitrates are pretty high at around 40ppm but everyone I have talked to says that’s pretty normal for how long my tank has been running. I was hoping these guys would help lower it too lol.
Macro algae going sexual?
- Thread starter Mreardon93
- Start date
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Plants like stability in photo period and intensity, so shipping those algae no doubt caused some degradation. Nothing you can do about that (other than buying it locally).
You could ask the shipper about the photo period and intensity of the lighting it used to be housed under and mimic that, but the rest of your reef tank wouldn't like it very much.
It's probably best at this point to leave it alone and see if it recovers. If you have a sizable amount of Caulerpa, you might try making cuttings and moving those to other areas of your tank which have more or less light than the current location.
When Caulerpa is happy it tends to grow very rapidly and can take over a tank. I moved all of mine to a refugium and it was quite happy there, and I didn't have to worry about it growing over my corals.
Halimedia needs a high calcium level, so you might test calcium and alkalinity to make sure they are in a normal range.
I hope you will post photos of your tank and provide details your system and water parameters for everyone to see. Lots of help available here, but when we don't have information about your system etc, it's really hard to help with solutions.
I waited a few days and everything has recovered fine and appears to be growing actually. I split up my Caulerpa and it has been growing pretty good and I am pretty happy with it. I am testing for calcium and magnesium, etc and as of right now everything is fine. I’m not exactly sure how to attach pictures to these threads yet either lol.
Mr Fishface
Valuable Member
Glad it is working and growing now. Algae take a little beating in shipping but, like you noticed, tend to recover well quickly. Another thing I noticed when I changed lights over my caulerpa (started with a 13 or 26w cfl and upgraded to a plant grow light) was that it did the same thing as it did post shipping. The old leaves got light/clear, the algae lost a lot of size initially but then as new "leaves" came on they grew even better than before. Just a heads up if you change lights at all in the future - not something i see many people talk about with algae.
