Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!gringort
From: gringort@decwrl.dec.com (Joel Gringorten)
Newsgroups: alt.aquaria
Subject: Re: Fresh water plants (and marine too!)
Message-ID: <411@bacchus.DEC.COM>
Date: 2 May 88 18:51:37 GMT
References: <317@unisv.UUCP> <3599@gryphon.CTS.COM> <399@bacchus.DEC.COM> <3020@leo.UUCP>
Reply-To: gringort@decwrl.UUCP (Joel Gringorten)
Organization: DEC Western Software Lab, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 46

In article <3020@leo.UUCP> harald@leo.UUCP ( Harald Milne) writes:
>
>    I have caulerpa, and I certainly don't worry about nutrition. As far as
>I know, caulerpa thrives off nitrates and light. Since you always have nitrates
>at some level, this isn't a problem. I do have very STRONG lighting.
>
 [description of elaborate lighting system removed - for space]
>	That's 120 watts total.
>
I have 240 watts of light in a 100 gallon tank.  This includes 80 watts
of Actinic Blue bulbs.  

>    I remove caulerpa by the pounds every week! It grows like hell under
>these lighting conditions. 

Yeah, me too.  But keep reading...

>	BTW, I had a near tank disaster with a strain of caulerpa that looks
>like a fern plant. (The leaves). Under certain conditions, this kind of
>caulerpa goes into "algea bloom". The entire chain turns a translucent white
>and dies. The tank turns into greenish color, and is severely polluted. I
>doubt an undergravel filtration system would have the capacity to handle this
>level of pollution. Just a warning.
>

Yup, I had the same experience with that same type of caulerpa.  Fortunately,
I have a high capacity filtration system, and my tank water never got
polluted. 

What I'm trying to determine is what the "certain conditions" are that
cause massive die-offs of caulerpa.   My theory
is that a heavy growth of a strain of caulerpa, depletes the supply of 
whatever it is that they thrive on.  When the nutrients get exausted,
the caulerpa dies.  One solution might be to keep it pruned back to
a reasonable level.  This will also prevenet a massive tank pollution
should the stuff decide to croak one day.  My system has a very light
fish load, and my nitrate levels are immeassurably low.  Hence my
experimentation with the algae suppliments.  

Since my "Fern" caulpera croaked, I've been keeping only a type of
caulerpa that has leaves like pine needles.  It's doing well, and
when it dies, it seem to decay at a slower rate than the fern.

Anybody know the correct names for these caulerpas? 
-- 
                          -joel