Caulerpa - how to kill

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dvgyfresh

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20mg per gallon, but I did 30mg per gallon for a couple weeks at the beginning. Absolutely no negative effects on corals (LPS, Softies, and a few SPS), and anemones (RBTA, maxi mini, and rock flower). Ran it for over two months (almost 3). I was treating Cladophora, and at first I didn’t think it was doing anything to my caulerpas, but around 3 weeks in it started melting (did lead to a nutrient spike), took around 2 months to kill the cladophora. You don’t want to run carbon for the entire duration or run your skimmer for just the first week (and for 3 days after any re-dosing. Because of the nutrient spike I had to do water changes during the treatment, so for whatever percentage of tank volume I took out, I redosed the same percentage of the initial dose. My initial dose was 800mg (which was around 1.5x the recommended dose), so when I did a 25% water change, I redosed 200mg. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.
Thanks man that’s some good info ! I may just end up going this route
 
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Btw, have you thought of an ATS? How are you holdin up with the caulerpa?
No that wouldn’t work in my case I do have a refugium full with chaeto tho and currently I’m winning the battle. Caulerpa is down about 80% using reef flux , sorry hard to tell with blue lights but there is no caulerpa there now. I can see rocks again! Will do another dose on Thursday as it’ll be my 14th day using the stuff and I want to kill it all 100%. Somehow my chaeto is still doing fine like nothing happens

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No that wouldn’t work in my case I do have a refugium full with chaeto tho and currently I’m winning the battle. Caulerpa is down about 80% using reef flux , sorry hard to tell with blue lights but there is no caulerpa there now. I can see rocks again! Will do another dose on Thursday as it’ll be my 14th day using the stuff and I want to kill it all 100%. Somehow my chaeto is still doing fine like nothing happens

B15BCB02-F526-4316-A082-9670E16377B3.jpeg F8569223-1C05-4593-81E3-E07A9AB23F41.jpeg 7A265889-7855-4954-8D78-6E17B6F5155A.jpeg
This is great to hear honestly, it gives me a little hope lol. Though I am not really keen on hitting my system with reef flux again - but I am getting there. How much manual removal have you done to get rid of it?

Also, that is surprising that chaeto was unaffected. I've heard reports of people with chaeto just going to mush and only a couple where it's been fine.

My caulerpa has been just growing unchecked at this point, I am going to get an ATS installed soon though - hopefully run it so it can outcompete my DT. Did you have any issues with nutrient spikes with all the die off?
 
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This is great to hear honestly, it gives me a little hope lol. Though I am not really keen on hitting my system with reef flux again - but I am getting there. How much manual removal have you done to get rid of it?

Also, that is surprising that chaeto was unaffected. I've heard reports of people with chaeto just going to mush and only a couple where it's been fine.

My caulerpa has been just growing unchecked at this point, I am going to get an ATS installed soon though - hopefully run it so it can outcompete my DT. Did you have any issues with nutrient spikes with all the die off?
I haven’t really tested too much , my tank has a lot of softies / lps so I’m not worried about too much nutrients it’ll jus make my Xenia grow haha I did no manual removal after dosing reef flux it’s literally disappearing over night every day there is less you can see in my pics before that it was everywhere now it’s barley holding on. When I did test my nitrate was 20ppm and phosphate was at .3 ppm so nothing to worry about. I’ve been feeding heavy as well
 
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Here is the chaeto yeseryday what’s weird is the caulerpa is dying in the refugium as well but chaeto looks normal as ever
 

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No that wouldn’t work in my case I do have a refugium full with chaeto tho and currently I’m winning the battle. Caulerpa is down about 80% using reef flux , sorry hard to tell with blue lights but there is no caulerpa there now. I can see rocks again! Will do another dose on Thursday as it’ll be my 14th day using the stuff and I want to kill it all 100%. Somehow my chaeto is still doing fine like nothing happens

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Glad to see that the fluconazole is working on the caulerpa! Was curious to see how it would affect chaeto, I’m starting a new refugium this week and I’m sure there’s still a little fluconazole in my tank. I’ve done probably 10 water changes since I last dosed, but even with that much dilution there’s got to still be some in there, so it’s good to see that it doesn’t seem to affect chaeto much.
 
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I also bought 5 more emerald crabs last week to help this along and I think they are also helping
Glad to see that the fluconazole is working on the caulerpa! Was curious to see how it would affect chaeto, I’m starting a new refugium this week and I’m sure there’s still a little fluconazole in my tank. I’ve done probably 10 water changes since I last dosed, but even with that much dilution there’s got to still be some in there, so it’s good to see that it doesn’t seem to affect chaeto much.
thanks for the all the advice!! Ye I thought my refugium would be toast but it looks fine chaeto is still growing. I haven’t done a single water change yet and probly won’t until the 2nd dose is complete
 

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After seeing your results I bit the bullet and just dosed - went with the standard dose of 20mg per gal (maybe went slightly over). I will report back over the weeks and see.

Here is a before pic which is pretty scary lol
 

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After seeing your results I bit the bullet and just dosed - went with the standard dose of 20mg per gal (maybe went slightly over). I will report back over the weeks and see.

Here is a before pic which is pretty scary lol
My vlamingii would love that tank lol.

But do keep us updated on progress. Even if you start a thred and document it. Always nice to have more data, especially current data, on these types of things.
 
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After seeing your results I bit the bullet and just dosed - went with the standard dose of 20mg per gal (maybe went slightly over). I will report back over the weeks and see.

Here is a before pic which is pretty scary lol
Holy infestation !! Lol yep my rocks looked like that in some areas especially behind the rocks . It simply disappeared after about 10 days , now I see tons of aptasia but one pest at a time lol
 
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After seeing your results I bit the bullet and just dosed - went with the standard dose of 20mg per gal (maybe went slightly over). I will report back over the weeks and see.

Here is a before pic which is pretty scary lol
I also did 1.5x the normal dose per @MaxTremors , he’s the one who had soem
More experience
 

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I also did 1.5x the normal dose per @MaxTremors , he’s the one who had soem
More experience
Good to know, I will up the dosage. I am at around 55g total volume and I used 6 capsules. I’ll toss in another capsule or two.

As far as documenting, I’ll probably just document it with photos and report back here lol.
 

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So I have a pretty big infestation of caulerpa in my DT, the question is how do I get rid of it? It grows very fast and I prune weekly but to what end…

I have a sump / refugium that runs opposite of DT however it is still growing in DT. I have emerald crabs / urchin / lawn mower blenny and they do eat it but not fast enough.
I’m thinking of using algaefix for saltwater or vibrant to kill off the caulerpa and in the meantime turning off return pump to keep refugium alive. Any recommendations?

should I dose vibrant / algaefix and also do a blackout to make the algae die off?

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I think fluconazole kills it
 
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Good to know, I will up the dosage. I am at around 55g total volume and I used 6 capsules. I’ll toss in another capsule or two.

As far as documenting, I’ll probably just document it with photos and report back here lol.
We can do it! Just remember no skimmer/gfo/carbon ect during the treatment. It’s so cool being able to see some rock again haha
 
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Hey guys , just showing the results of dosing reef flux , caulerpa is 95% gone! I still have some remnants that survived especially in the shade it seems but it is manageable now with just taking out !! The stuff works and I can see my rocks again lol
 

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spideybry

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Hey guys , just showing the results of dosing reef flux , caulerpa is 95% gone! I still have some remnants that survived especially in the shade it seems but it is manageable now with just taking out !! The stuff works and I can see my rocks again lol
Looking good, glad you are seeing some results.

Currently I am on day 6 of my treatment. So far the fluconazole seems to be making a slow dent. I haven't done any manual removal since starting up the treatment. I did start up an ATS two days ago but it's still bare white and doubt it is making any impact on the system yet. I've also switched to socks again while the caulerpa dies off.

The difference is really noticable in the circled areas and where the triangle is pointing at some botryocladia, where as today it is just a few stalks. In those circled areas I can finally see some rock.

Ignore the horrible phone quality pics -
Fluc Treatment 1-12 through 1-18.jpg
 
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Looking good, glad you are seeing some results.

Currently I am on day 6 of my treatment. So far the fluconazole seems to be making a slow dent. I haven't done any manual removal since starting up the treatment. I did start up an ATS two days ago but it's still bare white and doubt it is making any impact on the system yet. I've also switched to socks again while the caulerpa dies off.

The difference is really noticable in the circled areas and where the triangle is pointing at some botryocladia, where as today it is just a few stalks. In those circled areas I can finally see some rock.

Ignore the horrible phone quality pics -
Fluc Treatment 1-12 through 1-18.jpg
It was a slow process for me to , but then it really ramped up towards the end. Caulerpa became translucent and disappears
 
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Update, I can actually see rocks lol.

Fluc Treatment 1-12 through 1-21-22.jpg


This rock specifically was engulfed at one point, now I can finally see some rock.
1642786053961.png
It’s looking a lot better! You may need to do a second dose due to how strong the roots are in the rock but I can tell it’s working
 
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