Sk8r
04/27/2014, 09:40 AM
Cheatomorpha.
It looks like a Brillo pad gone green, and ideally (if healthy) is in clumps. It has no roots. It supports all sorts of pods and worms and such, and grows handily in a fuge that's lit 24/7. I use a simple shoplight clipon with a 6500k CFL bulb, and have no trouble growing it. This algae also is real good serving as a living filter medium that traps gunk and breaks up microbubbles (my downflow is from the main floor to the basement, so it comes in pretty violently) and breaks the violence of strong flow.
Some people succeed in growing things like gracillaria, etc, for their upstairs fish. This is nice if you can do it.
The algae I strongly advise against is caulerpa in its feather, grape, or leafy form. Caulerpa cannot be eaten by most fish. It's toxic to them. It grows fast, it roots in rock, and reproduces by runner, a fragment, or by sporing, and bits CAN get into your display tank and root in your rockwork, after which you must either get one of the few fish that eats it (requiring at least a 100 gallon tank) or toss the rock. And it can take everything. It can 'go sexual' if subjected to a prolonged darkness, spore and cloud your tank, robbing your fish of oxygen. And it's illegal in California, who are scared it's going to get loose in coastal waters. It has created a natural disaster in the Mediterranean...where it did get loose.
They're still selling this stuff, because it's unkillable and reproduces fast...exactly why it's not safe. Cheatomorpha is the preferable algae, particularly if your display is under 100 gallons.
For anyone who's already had it get loose, the only fish that can exist close to 100 gallons that can eat this stuff is the one-spot rabbitfish: this fish is himself toxic, and may kill other fish with his poison spine if he begins to hit max size in a tank too small for him. This danger arrives at about 5" in a 50 gallon tank: his growth potential is 10", and believe me, the bigger they get, the less willing a friendly lfs is to take said fish off your hands. [It is also a good idea to wear leather gloves under 'elbow gloves' when moving rockwork with this fish in the tank, because he is very timid, and when scared, he often plasters himself to rockwork, where (in the usual blinding dust kickup) you may lay hands on him by accident. The sting is for most people about like a brown recluse spider. I have personally seen an instance of necrosis around such a sting, for about an inch around: rare, but not that rare.]
In short, the drawbacks to caulerpa are many. Its advantages [being unkillable] are also the chief reasons it's a bad algae to encourage. Cheato requires just one thing, really: the right kind of light, and you can buy that at your local hardware store. 6500k spotlight CFL.
It looks like a Brillo pad gone green, and ideally (if healthy) is in clumps. It has no roots. It supports all sorts of pods and worms and such, and grows handily in a fuge that's lit 24/7. I use a simple shoplight clipon with a 6500k CFL bulb, and have no trouble growing it. This algae also is real good serving as a living filter medium that traps gunk and breaks up microbubbles (my downflow is from the main floor to the basement, so it comes in pretty violently) and breaks the violence of strong flow.
Some people succeed in growing things like gracillaria, etc, for their upstairs fish. This is nice if you can do it.
The algae I strongly advise against is caulerpa in its feather, grape, or leafy form. Caulerpa cannot be eaten by most fish. It's toxic to them. It grows fast, it roots in rock, and reproduces by runner, a fragment, or by sporing, and bits CAN get into your display tank and root in your rockwork, after which you must either get one of the few fish that eats it (requiring at least a 100 gallon tank) or toss the rock. And it can take everything. It can 'go sexual' if subjected to a prolonged darkness, spore and cloud your tank, robbing your fish of oxygen. And it's illegal in California, who are scared it's going to get loose in coastal waters. It has created a natural disaster in the Mediterranean...where it did get loose.
They're still selling this stuff, because it's unkillable and reproduces fast...exactly why it's not safe. Cheatomorpha is the preferable algae, particularly if your display is under 100 gallons.
For anyone who's already had it get loose, the only fish that can exist close to 100 gallons that can eat this stuff is the one-spot rabbitfish: this fish is himself toxic, and may kill other fish with his poison spine if he begins to hit max size in a tank too small for him. This danger arrives at about 5" in a 50 gallon tank: his growth potential is 10", and believe me, the bigger they get, the less willing a friendly lfs is to take said fish off your hands. [It is also a good idea to wear leather gloves under 'elbow gloves' when moving rockwork with this fish in the tank, because he is very timid, and when scared, he often plasters himself to rockwork, where (in the usual blinding dust kickup) you may lay hands on him by accident. The sting is for most people about like a brown recluse spider. I have personally seen an instance of necrosis around such a sting, for about an inch around: rare, but not that rare.]
In short, the drawbacks to caulerpa are many. Its advantages [being unkillable] are also the chief reasons it's a bad algae to encourage. Cheato requires just one thing, really: the right kind of light, and you can buy that at your local hardware store. 6500k spotlight CFL.