PBS special on Caulerpa tonight!

[inwall75]

It is spread by boat anchors, fish nets, bilge-water ballasts of ships, etc.

This is an interesting article.
http://swr.ucsd.edu/hcd/CAULERPA.htm

[Birdlady]

Another , other side of the scales, opinion

Here

This is really my only point...the whole story..
Additionally, why are all Caulerpa species illegal in California, and being considered same in other states?

Just a friendly open discussion...

[Gresham]

Originally Posted by Matt Rogers

Sue maybe you missed it, they tested a bunch of DNA samples and the one that was a perfect match was a strain that is common in fish stores. They even traced it back from the Monaco Oceanographic museum (directly above where the first invasion was) to an aquarium in Stugart Germany back in the 70's.

For those that did not see it, they are not sure what made this strain so resilient to temperature (a tropical plant that can survive cold winters in the Med. sea!) but their theories were an aquarium brew to a hardy sample that someone picked up and propagated.

Regardless of whether you believe any of the above, we as hobbyist have a responsibility, especially those on the coasts, do be damn careful how you get rid of it. My street gutter goes to a drain that goes directly to San Francisco Bay a few blocks away. When I was whining about caulerpa in my tank a while back, I was pulling it out and putting it in my freezer for days before I threw it out in the trash. I recommend that to anyone else. Fortunately my FoxFace pounded on the rest.

No no, public aquariums, not ours (LFS)

They have abused the world aquarium far too long now. If one is talking about a public aquarium, you note the word PUBLIC prior to aquarium, which they (the media) has a real hard time understanding. I've actually had words with an edittor over this, as well as talked to several high up US F & W S agents. At least the agents understood the difference between hobby aquariums and public aquariums.

[Gresham]

BL, they made a blanket law banning all caulerpa species as they couldn't expect their agents to be able to ID the common ones We fought it as best we could, belive me. They had.have their sites set on live rock now as it may or may not contain caulerpa as a hitchhiker Who elected them god, oh wait, we did.

[Birdlady]

Oh yeah, it is so difficult to differentiate grape caulerpa from razor caulerpa...blah blah blah!

Fish and Game would have an easier time making that distinction than they do with the antlered/antlerless differentiation for deer hunting! (less than 3" = antlerless in this state...??? ) Keep an empty shotgun casing in your bag (even if you are bowhunting) to determine what 3" looks like (an actual quote)

I know, you can't fight city hall!

[Matt Rogers]

That article is interesting BL in that it points out that there are different types of caulerpa and a total ban might not appropriate ,but loses me with the part about how it's just covering inhospitable mud anyway.

But doesn't most Caulerpa grow like weeds? My last bout was with grape caulerpa and I found it harder to remove from rock than the taxifolia they have in the documentary.

LIke BL, inwall and others have pointed out, ship ballasts are a big problem sucking stuff up in one port and dumping it in the next. I wish there was a way for them to figure out how to sterilize.. boiling comes to mind but would require a ton of energy which isn't economical and then dumping out hot water is not any good either. Does anybody know if there is somebody working on this?


Many non-indeginous invasive species are man-made problems.. and a natural solution might not be possible.. the slugs from Florida won't live in cold water. How in the heck they will roll up the carpet in the Mediterrean I have no idea. For me it is an example of why we all should be careful with how we dispose of things from our aquariums.

[Gresham]

How about the caulerpa infestations have been mainly in polluted areas in the get go. Some are showing pretty major signs of lack of pollution. Habitat lost, temporary water quality gained.

There's around 150 invasive species in the great lakes all from the batlic. There's just as many from the great lakes, in the baltic.

[inwall75]

http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/...lastwater.html

Here are a number of other ballast water treatement programs http://globallast.imo.org/index.asp?page=Abstracts.htm

This problem is compounded by the fact that the Port of Call (where the freighter ships are registered) are often countries that don't do any shipping themselves. The shippers don't have to follow our laws, they follow the laws of their Port of Call. Believe it or not, a huge number of freighters are registered in Liberia or one of several South American land-locked countries that don't even have a coastline. The obvious question would be, Why??? Taxes.

Liberia is often called a “flag of convenience” haven for the registration of ships. Ship owners from around the globe register their ships here because Liberia does not tax foreign source shipping income of non-resident Liberian registered corporations. Exemption of shipping income is authorized in the Liberian Business Corporation Act of 1977.

http://www.taxhavenco.com/osm/taxhavens/Liberia.html

Liberia has gone through a lot of political unrest (civil war from 1980 to 2004)in recent years and pressuring their government over ballast water just wasn't doable. Hopefully, now that things are calming down, some changes can be made.

[Gresham]

IIRC our Coast Guard boards most Liberian ships that enter the states now. Ballast water isn't the bigger issue when it comes to those broken down freighters

[Matt Rogers]

Thanks for the links Curtis.. looks like a lot of effort is going into this, that's great. Microns, UV, and heat are some of the tests going on. For the heat, one test was using the ships engine to heat it, I didn't think of that. Interesting stuff.