Well the thing is I have not added anything in the tank for many months. It is a waterbox 15.2 peninsula. The overflow waterfall to chamber 1 seems decent, but I have a powerhead breaking surface for extra agitation and oxygen.
I checked with the fuge light and all the caulerpa is rotting/dying. That must explain the foam. I wonder what happened.. I used the exact same fuge light in my other tank that grows caulerpa/chaeto like a weed.
www.reef2reef.com
Awesome - thank you! The thing is this tank has been setup for like 5 months now lol. I used liverock AND water from my other system the fluval evo (feel free to follow its tank progression on my build thread). Could the caulerpa have died from a nutrient bottom out even with excess light? Maybe there was some bacterial bloom that just concentrated on the macro algae for some reason? I am only feeding the tank like once a week seeing I only have hermits/snails + microfaunaThe microbial processes in reef systems are dynamic even without a change in routine or maintenance. The calurpa certainly does explain the foaming. Besides removing the foam I'd try water changes with water and maybe a few pieces of rock from your other system. I'd suggest reading Aquabiomics article if you haven't already:
Establishing a Healthy Microbiome in a New Aquarium Using Live Rock
Studying the effects of live rock in a newly established aquarium shows that high-quality live rock promotes the rapid establishment of an effective biological filter and a microbial community similar to those found in mature reef tanks.
Here's some good videos by researchers looking at what's happening on reefs with microbial stuff and nutrients:
"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems
Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes
Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont
BActeria and Sponges
Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)
Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching
More likely a gamete release that made the Caulerpa bleach and collaps.
I have never heard of this before. Going to look into it shortly.
From time to time Caulerpa algae release gametes. In fact parts or even the complete algae form gametes, I mean completely, the algae are like tubes filled with gametes then. When the gametes are released the water gets a bit cloudy and from the affected parts or the complete algae only empty white tubes remain which finally decay.
Thank you for the explanation. I really am ignorant to how Caulerpa works. Would the gametes create a visible change of the Caulerpa? I did notice it was sending out some different looking chutes. This could really explain what happened seeing the only thing in the tank is the Caulerpa, it died off very quickly, and yes the water last week was very cloudy. Than all of a sudden the caulerpa has been rapidly dying with this foam coming up on the top of the water.
When ammonia tests 0 after a tanks cycle I typically never test again unless I see the start of a large die off of the inhabitants in the tank or something very wrong. This tank is 5months in and nothing was in the tank to die to cause a ammonia spike. All the flow has been consistent. I have just been having a bad hair algae problem the past few months which is often normal the first year of establishment. Even if hypothetically there was a small ammonia spike from the Caulerpa die off (which I don't think is possible) the hermit crabs or Mangroves would probably be affected.
I don't think the mangroves would be affected from stuff I have read about them (I kept them for about 4 yrs) but yes the inverts would. Is something potentially blocking flow?
All the flow and hermits are fine so assuming no ammonia problem.
