Feather Caulerpa (Caulerpa mexicana)

The caulerpa is barely clinging on now that the chaeto has taken off. It goes sexual every now and then but because there is so little of it in the tank it's barely noticeable.

Heres a picture of the caulerpa after I pruned it pretty heavily.

This caulerpa is doing so well that it actually completely covered the refugium. I have cut back half of it and attempted to confine it to the left with a well-placed rock. It's proven pretty effective so far, but it's only been a week.

I have considered removing it and using a less invasive macro-algae, but it currently supports so much micro-life (snails, pods, and worms) that I have decided to leave it be.

Here you can see a species of bristleworm and another unknown worm taking refuge in the caulerpa. I can't get the camera to focus on any of the myriad of pods swimming around in the caulerpa.

The caulerpa is really growing in full swing now. I've had to prune it back twice so far.

The caulerpa continues to grow. I have had to pull some of the runners out of the sand and re-direct them.

The caulerpa is really taking off.

Feather Caulerpa is a fast-growing, nutrient-absorbing green macro-algae that attaches itself to the substrate by means of holdfasts. It is an excellent macro-algae for removing nitrates and phosphates from the water.

However, caulerpa is more prone to "go sexual" than many other macro-algaes, a process by which it spews it's innards into the water in a desperate attempt to reproduce when exposed to adverse conditions.

Caulerpa has come under attack by governmental agencies recently because of it's ability to survive in non-tropical areas, where it has no known natural predators. For this reason, Caulerpa should never be disposed of into a waterway that enters the ocean untreated.

I didn't add any Caulerpa to the aquarium. This small specimen must have grown from some traces that came in on the live-rock.