Help - Maiden's Hair turning white!

[nancysnuwave]

Here's a shot of my maiden's hair on Thursday night,
http://www.nancysnuwave.com/aquarium/tank_chlorodesmis3.JPG
in response to someone wishing to see plants in aquaria. Saturday am, we found a dead crab (http://www.nancysnuwave.com/aquarium/crab_dead.JPG) .. Saturday night, it was starting to look the color of cooked brocolli - white stalks, bright color tops..

Here's a shot from today..
http://www.nancysnuwave.com/aquarium/tank_chlorodesmis4.JPG

Any clues? Xenia seems happy, as do the rest of the corals. I had noticed yesterday the white colored xenia grasping at some of the strands of the Turtle Grass (http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?siteid=26&pCatId=659) (maiden's hair/turtle grass/clorodesmis)

The only different thing I've noticed is a scrapper magnet w/ a touch of rust showing - fosters's & smith seems to think this thing should LIKE iron.. usually mineral deficiencies take some time - not 30 hours!!

Any help, therapy, you name it would be welcome! One thing, it looked to me like the crab (http://www.nancysnuwave.com/aquarium/crab_dead.JPG) contained a lot of cholorophyll...

[Crawdad1]

It either went sexual (common in some macro algaes) or you tank is lacking something needed. what is you cal.cium levels and alkalinity levels? did you aclimate it temp wise from the shipping to the tank? what lights did you stick it under? If it came from vho's and you stuck it under a halide you may have burnt it. I do think that this type of macro algae is very sucessful. it may have just ran its course.

craw

[nancysnuwave]

Hi,
I'm not sure which lights it came from.. It's been in the tank since early June, under the MHs (175 (2) MH in 75gallons..lots of circulation.

Ca++ is 550 (oops), alk 3.2 (9.2DH).

Change seemed so sudden.. after it came, it had some die back, which we cut off.. up under the lights it was perky and even add new growth..

Then, this yellowing near the tips - about like Brocolli just before it flowers.. then (well, you can see).

I pulled it out and put it in a small clear container and put it out on the porch in the sun for a while.. afraid of meltdown causing a problem for the others (aka milky thing I've heard of w/ Caulerpa).

Pity.. I was thinking about getting a tang and was wondering how to protect this thing.. might not be an issue now..

Any thoughts on refugia species, if we get more phykos?

CHris

[DensityMan]

Any updates on your maiden's hair?

Looking at getting some tonight or this weekend.

Thanks (hope it turned out well),

[nancysnuwave]

Hi,

Well, it did die.. now I have a bunch of baby clumps which look about the same (a good thing).. these are scattered through the tank..

It's a beautiful plant to have.. I don't know yet that we know it's reproductive behaviour, life cycle, growing needs or what.

If the baby clumps are MH.. then, I'd say it's been a good thing for me to have bought!!

chris

[DensityMan]

So if that is smaller clumps of Maiden's Hair growing throughout your tank (congratulations) then one might be able to infer that your maiden's hair did go 'sexual' and died in the process... hrm...

I may have to try it anyway... there are two really nice looking pieces available at the LFS. ;)

[daghostryder]

Could it have something to do with the build up of nutirients from the pods and worms that readilt take refuge in the plant?? I had mine for all of 1 month then almost overnight complete meltdown. As if I didn't have enough problems. One thing worthy to note while my Nitrates where high above 25ppm the plant did well. as soon as my nitrates fell below 10ppm poof meltdown.

[auSS/Tin]

I had the same problem as dahgostryder with my maiden's hair. Went fine for about 2 months with high nitrates >25. Once nitrates dropped to <10 maiden's hair turned clear and died. Tried to move it area of higher light. Nothing. However, during this time Racemosa(grape caulerpa) and prolifera (grass looking kind) sawtooth grew like mad. Pretty much now the racemosa and sawblade have taken over the fuge. I keep on corner dedicated to prolifera(tangs love it). Maidens Hair is beautiful. Maybe someday I will try again.

Later
Bill