Algae/Plant

Question

Algae   Hi, I have this algae/plant growing in my tank and I don't know how to get rid of it.  I tried pulling it out, putting in snails/crab/shrimps.  I can't find any solution and it grows like weed.  Please help.  I attached a picture so you could see what it looks like.  Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you for your time.
Kim

Answer
Hi Kim:

Nice to meet you. From the image provided it looks like a species of Caulerpa macro algae. This macro algae can be beneficial in helping with water quality, by removing nutrients from the water; generally kept self-contained in a refugium. Otherwise in the aquarium it will continue to quickly grow and may become a nuisance.

To help get rid of it, you could try the following:

A Yellow Tang Fish will continuously make meals of it, until its gone, including the roots. It might take a while to do, but they eat it up fast once they discover the taste for it.

If it's growing only on 1 or 2 pieces of live rock, you could try to remove the rock and put it in a bucket where you can pull off as much as possible and scrape at the roots with a knife to try to pry them off. This will keep it under control for a few weeks at least. Or alternately if you can, completely remove the rocks that the Caulerpa is growing on, or relocate them to a refugium.

I wish you the best of luck with all your future saltwater aquarium endeavors.

Thanks and take care.

Sincerely,
Dave