Racemosa caulerpa losing its photosynthetic-authophototrophic ability.

I hate using these sorts of words with a passion, but no one believes anything with out pics and dazzling words,lol.

Anyway i like carrying out a bit of experimenting with things that over the years i have seen, but not had the time to work on.

This one was to see if a Photo autotroph form of life, being photosynthetic,could exist with out light in my high nutrient waters.

So i placed a stem of my racemosa with no forms (leaves we will call them) on it yet, in near no light for two weeks after I started dosing my system with homemade requirements for corals and algae or what ever,beyond what my bio system feeds the waters!

The original stem kept most of its pigments.

It appears that carbon dioxide fixation to TAG synthesis and sequestration is not happening and it’s still growing???

It seems that the antenna pigments of at least one or more should be harvesting light energy,but seems like they are not there, it looks like even the chlorophyll pigments are gone and photosynthetic life is still going on?

All phycocyanin,carotenes and xanthophylls would be gone as well, I assume as there is no colour and the racemosa is still growing and expanding in size, what the????

Some has taken on a slight red tint with in, but the more aggressive growing parts are completely transparent, not going sexual, it is flourishing while transparent!

The red isn’t cyano,I tried to clean it and no go.

Maybe it would only last a few weeks with growth,who knows.

Lol,love it!!

The diversity of life in marine systems can be down right weird at times.