caulerpa taxifolia

is this ok to put inside the DT with corals

 

most people prefer to confine calerpa to the sump/refugium only as it will quickly take over a DT especially under full lighting.

 

I am not sure I would even put it in my sump. It is an extremely fast growing and aggresive macro. There was a special on the Discovery channel a couple of weeks ago about how it is killing corals in the meditaranean (sp).

 

I tried putting this stuff in my DT and my hermits destroyed it in about 4 days. Who knew?

 

Agreed. That stuff is nasty. Isn't it illegal to "own" in some states, particularly California?

 

Yeah I know it is illegal in California (But all calupra is) however caulerpa taxifolia is even worse. From what I have seen in the specials on it, people doing water changes in California has caused it to get into the sewers and then into the ocean. Once in the ocean it then overpopulated to deadly propotions.

In fact the special on Discovery showed how a major marine research faciltiy in France or someplace (Jacque Custow sp......:-X) actually released it inadvertently and now they cant get rid of it.

 

Monaco I believe. I think I saw the same special.

 

Yep. We all saw the same show. ;D It was VERY good.

No way would I ever put that stuff anywhere in my tank! For the same usage, I think Chaeto is better and much easier to control.

 

Because the Monaco Aquarium is an open system with the Mediterranean Sea, they couldn't stop it. Caulerpa reproduces both sexually, and asexually so this was just a recipe for disaster. Jaubert (of plenum fame) did most of the research on C. taxifolia because I suspect he felt bad for partially causing the problem in the first place.

::SIGH:: Any other old farts who remember the Shimek, Jaubert, Goemans DSB Vs. Plenum debates? LOL

 

I saw this special to. At the end they mentioned that they might of found some type of slug/nudibranch that actually ate this stuff. I wonder what ever happen with that experiment.