I will take all adivce giving

[reefnjeff]

My tank at one time had no coral and tons of many types of plants, now I am feeling up with coral and getting rid of the plant, I have succesfully gotten rid of all, but this misreable, what ever the $%#* it is, I go diving in my tank twice a week with twizzers in hand and go plucking this fricking plant off my stuff, I can't get ahead of it I hired a tang for help, but he just eats the leaves and not the stems so they just keep growing.
any advice on what I can do and does anyome know what this miserable plant is? will a emerald crab eat this stuff? I know they will eat bubble algae.
I might need to hire an army of tangs

 

[leigh]

i don't recognize it, but it's not the clearest picture. however, if you can control it, and if your tang likes eating it, why do you want to get rid of it?

 

[michaeltx]

thats part of the reason people say dont add macro algaes to a display. even though you pull out as much as possible the roots that go down into the rock can and will regrow new macro algae.
do you have any corals in the tank right now ?
you might try emeralds or sally lightfoots and see if they wil rat it but its a 50/50 chane. kinds looks like razor macro of some sort but not real sure.
but any macro that has a cahnce to establish itself in to a tank is going to be hard to get rid of.
mike

 

[reefnjeff]

I want to get rid of it, because it grows over everything, up, over, through the corals and once it goes, it is unsightly, plus I want to ad more coral and I rather not have his plant growing all over it, I have been thinking about adding another large tang, but I did not want tangs in the tank at all.

 

[leigh]

Do you have a refugium? If so move the rock with the embedded roots to the refugium...if not, perhaps this is a sign for you to start a refugium Michael is right--once the roots are in the rock it's very hard to get them out. But again, cauerpa isn't a bad thing, it just needs to be in the right home--namely a refugium!

 

[marvida]

It looks like the same stuff I have. It's a type of razor caulerpa. Bad news is that emeralds won't touch it. I have it 2 display tanks because I don't have 'fuges on them. I have never tried to completely get rid of it before, I just prune it. I think Leigh is right in that moving the affected rocks to a 'fuge or sump is going to be your best bet. Personally I like the looks of the stuff.

 

[reefnjeff]

I thought about removing the infected rock out and putting them in a refugium, but some are very large rocks, I have also thought about setting up my 55 and taking all the rock out and starting fresh, I have been thinking about setting a up a deep water reef system, I got the rock to start it with and maybe with the much lower lighting it won't grow

 

[leigh]

Originally posted by reefnjeff
much lower lighting it won't grow
wishful thinking--that's like saying maybe aptaisia won't grow if the water conditions are too lousy for anemone's...we're not that lucky but a deep water reef would be crazy cool!

 

[reefnjeff]

wishful thinking indeed, but it was a nice thought anyways, but yes the deep water system would be great, most of my favorite soft corals are deep water corals, like the cauliflower corals and the gongorians