Caulerpa P. has gotten out of control. Thoughts on Lawnmower Blenny?

[TheWackyWiz]

Hi All,

I've Macro tank that's been up and running for ~9mos now and unfortunately I made a rookie mistake early on by introducing Caulerpa P. Despite weekly trimming I am really struggling to get it under control and I think it's outcompeting all of my other Macros which has failed to flourish.

I'd really like to avoid pulling out all the rock and manually removing all the runners as the rock has corals on it and the coraline algae is flourishing.

The tank is a 20g AIO with a tailspot blenny, court jester goby and handful of sexy shrimp.

I've thinking of two options:
1) Try to find an Algaecide which will kill Caulerpa and accept that it will also probably kill the macros I want to keep (I do plan to move the macros I want to keep to a QT).
2) Introduce a tuxedo urchin - I had one in the past that loved eating my cheato and red ogo which at the time wasn't ideal but might work in this situation.
3) Add a lawnmower blenny temporarily and hope that it will take a liking to caulerpa. But this is a real crap shoot if it will even eat Caulerpa.
4) Pull all the rock and spend a day prying everything off. Hope that the time out of water doesn't kill all the beneficial bacteria.

Would love other suggestions?

 

[Quietman]

Think you have the options covered. A redo with a smaller tank is a viable option a pain yes, but reasonably so.

Have you thought about new rock. Drastic and not sure I'd go with that first, but with enough algae the nitrifying bacteria matter less and with some water changes, probably easy to manage nutrients with small fish load.

I wouldn't go algaecide as once you move everything you want to keep to separate tank, why not just pull the runners and rhisomes manually. Might have to do that more than once. Maybe an algaecide after a manual removal to save a repeat removal. Maybe?

20 gallon livestock isn't going to cut it...not sure it would with more fish even if eat algae. The rhisomes are used to surviving being munched on. Plus more livestock, more nutrients for algae.

Good luck!