There are plenty of other macroalgaes, but most of the others are useless, being too small, too slow-growing, or the wrong color.
If you use and RDP ( reverse daylight photosynthesis ) day/night cycle, then you will have a tank full of algal exudates. 24/7 lighting prevents that, and keeps the algae working all the time. It retards sexual reproduction in caulerpa, too, which would spawn like crazy in a day/night cycle as well as release toxins. Good aeration in the tank prevents any imbalances in pH by degassing the excess oxygen.
Spaghetti Chaeto grass is a lot less hassle than caulerpa all the way around, and you can use day/night with it, although it too works better under 24/7 light.
I guess the main consideration is whether you want a refugium or an algal filter. if it's just a filter, 24/7 is the way to go in my opinion, but if it's a fuge with other stuff in it, then you want day/night & a lot of skimming & carbon to eliminate water yellowing & such, which would also be handy with a 24/7 setup, but not as important.
It's probably going to be awhile before the definitive answer to this question has been found and agreed upon by everyone. Both methods work, and each has it's advantages over the other, so I suspect that folks will be arguing over it for quite awhile to come. Heck, we haven't even settled the issue of substrate depth yet ( plenum vs DSB ) after a decade.
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