CORONADO, Calif. — Do you own an aquarium at home? If you do, you're familiar with Culerpa Prolifera.
It can be found in pet stores, on Amazon, Etsy, and now in the San Diego Bay where it doesn't belong.
It's beautiful for the at-home aquariums, but harmful to the ecosystem in the San Diego Bay.
Multiple environmental agencies have identified that people in San Diego unfortunately flushed or dumped this algae.
It's now a growing problem that's going to cost $4-million dollars to fix.
Caulerpa prolifera was discovered in San Diego waters last November, and only a couple months after California banned it.
While Caulerpa is not harmful to humans, it's killing San Diego's local eel grass, which is food for local fish and sea turtles to eat.
Environmental agencies are now attacking the algae, and announced Wednesday that they have secured $4M for the next four years to do a massive eradication effort of Caulerpa.
The main method will be to kill the algae with tarps.
David Gibson, Executive Director with the San Diego Water Region Board said, "Essentially the tarp kills the algae underneath it. It keeps it from getting the sunlight it needs to grow. So we’re deploying pieces of tarp to control where we found it, but because it breaks off into small pieces and can grow several millimeters per day. It has a real potential to spread beyond those key areas."
The bigger message that Fish & Wildlife and Parks tells ABC 10News they want to get out: properly dispose of Caulerpa algae.
If you already have it in your aquarium at home, do not flush it or dump it into the ocean. Also, do not purchase it.
This will be the best way to prevent and further infestation.
