What is your favorite Macro and why?

[Curtswearing]

A lot of people are using caulerpa's in their refugiums. They are a fast growing species of Macroalgae. If your purpose of owning the caulerpa is for nutrient export, then it is a good choice in my opinion. I use it along with some other macroalgae species.

However, there are some issues with caulerpa and other macro's that most people don't know about and I think it is important that you know all of the info so you can make up your own mind.

Caulerpa actually contains a toxin called caulerpenyne. That is the reason most of your fish won't eat it. If caulerpa dies or goes sexual in your tank these toxins will be released into the water column. If you had a huge refugium filled with it and it all died at once, it could kill your fish and inverts. There have been many studies on the impact of this toxin but not as it relates to reef tanks.

You NEVER want a caulerpa to die or go sexual in your tank for another reason---all of the phosphates and nitrates that were previously bound up in the caulerpa get added all at once to your water column----Yikes!!! After running your protein skimmer for a week, would you want to pour that skimmate into your tank? Obviously not. Having caulerpa die on you is basically the same thing.

If you use scissors to cut caulerpa, it will release a little of this toxin plus gelbstoff (basically a yellowing agent into the water). Luckily a activated carbon is excellent at removing the gelbstoff. The question is, does the activated carbon also remove the caulerpenyne??? Most people recommend a pinching action to reduce the amount of the the toxin and gelbstoff. I.e. Pinch and hold the pinch for a couple of seconds.

Obviously, the key to using this macro is keeping it alive.

Every living thing needs food. Caulerpa occassionally can die if there is no food for it. What is food for it? Proper lighting for photosynthesis is food. So are nitrates, phosphates and iron. If you throw some caulerpa in a sparkling clean tank with no nitrates nor phosphates, you better have pretty good lighting or you better have a very long photoperiod.

You can buy a product from Kent Marine if you think you should dose iron. Here is some info on Iron http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/aug2002/chem.htm

Trimming more often so that all of the caulerpa is getting light is important. I also believe that the fact that the more of it you have, the older it is and there is a greater likelihood of it going sexual and there is more competition.

[mwrager]

Good informantion, I like using caulerpa the olny thing I hate is keeping a eye on it so it does not die or go sexual.

[Curtswearing]

BTW---Pictures of different species of Macroalgaes can be seen HERE

[Craig Manoukian]

Will have Caulerpa sertularioides in my refugium along with a Miracle Mud substrate.

[sharks]

Great poll and thread
I use both grape and feather caulerpa in the REF. In over a year it has never gone sexual and I attribute that the lighting it 24/7. One of my friends turned his REF lighting off and forgot to turn it back on. Over night the caulerpra went sexual and his 180 reef was green. He did a good-sized water change, ran some carbon, and ran a canister for a day. Nothing in the tank died it just looked bad for a day.
HIH
S

[Curtswearing]

BTW----here is some nice info that Mojoreef got from Rob Toonen

Here is something that may help you folks in making a choice.
In order to make a meaningful comparison, we need some standardized measure of growth, however, because a "stalk" of one alga and another may be quite different. The most common measure is "specific growth rate" in which the growth is measured in mg per gram of algal body weight per day, or percentage increase. So, to compare the specific growth rates of some of the more common species that I can find data for, the maximum growth rates appear to be something like this:

Halimeda: ~2% / day (10-20 mg/g/d)
Dictyota: ~ 10% (50-100 mg/g/d)
Padina: ~ 10% (75-100 mg/g/d)
Caulerpa: ~ 10% (50-100 mg/g/d)
Thalassia: ~1.5% (10-15 mg/g/d)
Palmaria: ~15% (doubled in 1 week)
Enteromorpha: 20% (7 fold increase in 1 month)
Gracilaria: 6-10% / day

However, if you want to maximize the nutrient export, the clear winner in field experiments is the cyanobacteria Lyngbya, which grows at a rate of roughly 5 times that of any of the common macroalgae in the trade, and adds an average of about 35% (300-400 mg/g/d) of it's weight per day! But it would be a pain to remove and looks like hell....

So, obviously there is a bit of a trade-off that we have to take into account when we talk about nutrient export. We want something that grows fairly quickly to remove nutrients, but also you want something that is easily controlled, harvested, and doesn't make your tank look like a cesspool. The other consideration is that most of the common algae on the reef (e.g., Dictyota, Padina, Caulerpa) are often highly chemically defended (otherwise they are eaten by herbivorous fishes), and most people seemt to be trying to avoid such species in their tanks. So you have to balance the specific growth rate against the suite of secondary chemicals which these species release and the ability to harvest them for nutrient export. So, taking all of this into account (growth, ease of removal, chemical defenses, probability of overgrowth, appearance, etc.), my favorite choices for macroalgae in my own tanks is typically Halimeda or Ochtodes if included in the main display tank, and Enteromorpha, or Graciliaria, if included in a refugium or a sump....

[Craig Manoukian]

Originally posted by Curtswearing
my favorite choices for macroalgae in my own tanks is typically Halimeda or Ochtodes if included in the main display tank, and Enteromorpha, or Graciliaria, if included in a refugium or a sump....

Where does one get Enteromorpha, or Graciliaria for a refugium? caulerpa or any other macro algaes are really tough to get ahold of here in Reno. TIA

[NaH2O]

Originally posted by Curtswearing
BTW---Pictures of different species of Macroalgaes can be seen HERE

I just wanted to add that if you can, please post a review in the link Curt provided. A reviews section is only useful if people post their opinions. Great thread Curt! I'm tagging along.....

[Curtswearing]

I'm still browsing all of the sponsors web pages so I can become knowledgeable about what they sell. Hopefully one of them has it.

[Travis]

My favorite is Halimeda, because I can easily control it, and it actually looks nice in my display.

Also, I was under the impression that it never went sexual as caulerpa does. Someone recently told me otherwise, but still, in over a year of keeping it the halimeda has never done anything but grow.

The drawback is it will remove CA from the water. I keep a ton of it, and just have to use a little more pickling lime (kalk) as a consequence.

Travis

[Craig Manoukian]

Red Graciliaria cornea

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...22&pCatId=1127

[tankgirl]

Mine is Chaetomorpha, but my tangs fav is Gracilaria.

[Craig Manoukian]

Still can't find anyone who sells Enteromorpha!

[Cougra]

I personally like the looks of Halimeda in a tank and it grows slow enough not to become annoying.

However I have a few different types of Caulerpa in the system as well for nutrient export. (It's also more readily available in the area then the other types I've seen around)

[fisheye]

Caulerpa due to the amazing growth rates I just like to see how much I can get in a day. But haven't tried Enteromorpha