can caulerpa hitchhike on sps

so i was at my LFS today and the owner gave me a freebie sps, only problem is that it was RTN and there was caulerpa on it. he gave me a frag of it ( the colony was about a basketball size ) and it had some RTN on it, i cutted the frag and dipped it in coralrx.

now is there any way that the spores on the caulpera be on the frag still?

 

not if you dipped it in coral rx as loog as u didnt take the piece with the actual caulpera on it you should be 100% fine post a pic! lol

 

well actually i bought a couple of peices lol.. but the spores would not hitchhike right? i did not dip 1 frag because i forgot and now its in my main display x_x

 

Almost anything is possible in this hobby, but you should be fine.

 

The caulerpa is likely what caused the RTN. Caulerpenyne is a secondary metabolite (toxin) that all caulerpa has (in varying amounts) and is a growth inhibitor to SPS at best and a toxin to SPS at worst. I don't mind caulerpa in softy or LPS tanks but it never goes into my SPS tanks.

I wouldn't worry about spores surviving on the frag. If there was a holdfast on the frag, it would be a different story.

 

I wonder if that's what caused my SPS to suffer RTN. Would a devils hand have anything similar to do with this? I've read they can release toxins too but I also see many people have them or toadstools in their tanks with SPS growing. I dont like running carbon but I still do sometimes, and I was when I experienced the RTN

 

Toadstools might cause issues, I'm not sure. I can tell you for sure that if your SPS is downstream of a Sinularia, you're going to have issues.

 

toxic warfare is always a possibility in a mixed tank. Careful placement in terms of waterflow etc will help this. Also creating zones for the coral typed.. SPS up strean from LPS and LPS up stream from softies has wrked well for me in the past. If your running a wave maker or such where your flow is quite random space is key to inhibiting warfare.

As to the OP its unlikely that the spored would survive on the flesh of the frag. The caulerpa could have caused the RTN originally but its more likely to be poor husbandry on the LFS to start. The problems with caulerpa I have seen before there was a ton of it around the coral and the roots causing the irritation not spored from the caulerpa.