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karo25
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Out of curiosity, what salt do you use? I've had a feeling perhaps my salt isn't providing enough trace elements (have absolutely nothing I can base this on, just a feeling).
3rd and final try... what am I doing wrong?
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DeepBlueSomething
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Instant Ocean Reef Crystals -- my salinity is @ 1.026 but I am working that back down. Make my own RODI and mix in a Brut can....
ChrisOFL
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Do you know what type of lighting the chaeto was under before you received it. Changes to light spectrum/photoperiod can cause plants to go sexual and that could be happening to your chaeto. I would also like to point out that vegetative growth occurs in all GREEN plants when the suns output is leaning more towards the blue spectrum than the red spectrum and flowering occurs when the suns spectrum shifts more towards the red. I know all about how red lighting is the new thing for making refugiums/algae scrubbers grow algae faster but, in my opinion, if macroalgae has no flowering stage other than "going sexual" I see the red lighting as more of a risk. I would also like someone to link me a study showing how much faster green macroalgae grows under this red spectrum than a traditional plant spectrum. I actually use a cheap Chinese black box LED and just run the white channels only for about 16 hours/day and this has always grown green macroalgaes of all types for me with no issues and I've never had a sexual event because of it.
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karo25
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I've only used Instant Ocean and was thinking of moving to Red Sea, but I'll wait and see how it goes without the reactor.
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karo25
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Hmm, hadn't thought of that. Though I did watch all of BRS' videos on Chaeto growth under different lights and there was more significant growth with the horticultural spectrum.
ChrisOFL
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That was a interesting video but to me it seems that the growth was much more directly related to light intensity rather than spectrum which is why I do not believe heavy red lighting is necessary or that beneficial to growing green algae. Notice how much better the 23W CFL grew compared the 7w HOB refugium strip light even though the CFL spectrum is total garbage for plant growth. Your other issue could be phosphate is so limited that the algae is nutrient starved but I see you said you removed your GFO so that should help with nutrients for the chaeto.
Given its been a couple of months now that you've taken your GFO off line tell us...how is that Chaeto doing? Any success?I have been attempting to keep and grow Chaeto in my refugium. As the title states, this will be the third time I've purchased Chaeto with each previous attempt slowly melting away over time. The Chaeto slowly looses color over a couple of months with the ball getting smaller and smaller. I have never produced enough to trim it back.
Originally in my sump the skimmer came first, then the Chaeto but I thought perhaps the skimmer was removing too much of the nutrients (even though GHA grew very well in that section), so I have since moved the Chaeto to the first section with the return pipes and the skimmer comes in the second section. I have also removed the socks I have been using.. I am sockless!
So here's the set up: 15"(L) x 15"(W) x 11"(H) approx. 10.7 gallons
Kessil H80 Tuna Flora Refugium LED light 8" off the water (100% output tuned to "Grow" spectrum)
Salinity 1.026
Ammonia 0.0
Nitrite 0.0
Nitrate 10
Phosphate 0.0
Alkalinity 9.1
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1350
PH 7.86 - 8.1 (Usually around 7.91)
Temp 78.6
Iron 0.05
I had done some research that said Chaeto needed Iron to more easily uptake nutrients and my system tested as 0 so I've been dosing Iron and I've not seen a change in the Chaeto. Still loosing color and generally looking quite sad.
Any suggestions? Am I missing something?
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karo25
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Actually it went quite well for awhile, even saw the Chaeto growing. Nitrates did rise to approximately 10 and the Phosphate to 1 ppm. I've been dosing NO3 po4-X to help reduce the nitrates but unfortunately it has mostly reduced the phosphates and now the Chaeto is getting that classic silver look to it and the size of the ball has reduced considerably. So at least I know what is causing the Chaeto issue. Now how to fix it ...
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I would start with not using any carbon dosings such as vodka or nopox. At least until nutrients reach an equilibrium for chaeto to grow.
How long is the photoperiod and what kind of light are you using in the refugium?
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Sorry, just saw you're using the h80. How long is the light turned on?
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karo25
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Opposite of main display with one hour overlap, 30 minutes before the main display shuts down and 30 minutes after main display has come on.
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Reduce the photoperiod to 6 hours for a week then 7 hours followed by 8 hours. Keep it at 8 hours for the time being. You might be providing too much light and chaeto will keep photosynthesizing for two hours after lights are off.
Chris Villalobos
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Following. I've had similar problems getting Chaeto to grow. I've been able to grow it at one point in my tank's life and that was when I had a huge spike in Nutrients. I put the Chaeto in and it took off, but when the tank was/is running low on nutrients the added Chaeto just melted away. Carbon dosing will kill Chaeto quick, but sometimes won't kill the GHA in the display. Carbon dosing can also cause Cyano outbreaks.
I would suggest manually removing all the GHA you can. You may even need to scrub the rock work with H202. How is your "turnover rate". If it's low the GHA may consume much of the nutrients before it ever gets to the Chaeto in your sump. Derbesia sp. (GHA) will grow in the display even when you can't grow Chaeto in the sump. I know this from personal experience.
My point is you can have GHA growing fine in your display but still not be able to grow Chaeto.
I would suggest manually removing all the GHA you can. You may even need to scrub the rock work with H202. How is your "turnover rate". If it's low the GHA may consume much of the nutrients before it ever gets to the Chaeto in your sump. Derbesia sp. (GHA) will grow in the display even when you can't grow Chaeto in the sump. I know this from personal experience.
My point is you can have GHA growing fine in your display but still not be able to grow Chaeto.
I’m in the same boat with no answers. I’ve tried all of the above mentioned fixes as well. I do have small amounts of cyano and algae’s but nothing crazy. For now I am just going to go without chaeto and try again at a later time.
Chris Villalobos
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I emailed a chaeto grower and they told me that my light maybe to bright for chaeto to die off that fast. I'm currently using a TaoTronics 24w Led Grow light Bulb, but when I was able to grow chaeto before i was using a plain old 23w cfl.
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karo25
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I currently have no GHA that is visible in my main display, never have only green and brown film algae. I have recently had a spike in Cyno which I'm guessing now is in response to the Nopox I was using. I do have some GHA algae in my Chaeto chamber but I try and keep that down to a minimum by scraping it down and catching with floss before it enters the skimmer chamber. Once the Chaeto chamber is clear of the loose algae I remove the floss and return the Chaeto. I've stopped the Nopox treatment now for the 4th day and already the Chaeto is looking better. Guess I'll have to work on the nitrates via water changes. I'd like to get those nitrates below 5 if possible, 2 -3 would even be better.
Chris Villalobos
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How is your chaeto growth going? I found that my problem could have been too low of flow and too much light. I switched my sump so that my chaeto is getting direct flow straight from my display and I stopped using the 24w LED grow light and swapped in a cheap 5000k 1300 lumen LED. I have also let my nutrients rise to 5 ppm NO3 and 0.05 ppm PO4. Chaeto has not bleached out this time.
Karo25, for what it is worth I went ahead and broke down and bought a kessil h380. I tried a grow bulb, a CFL, a par 38, a kessil h80, and this will be my last stop for now. Your problems match the description of my problems to a T. I’ll let you know in a week or so if it seems to have solved the problem.
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karo25
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Yeah I've given up on the Chaeto, once it was in decline it seemed to maintain for a couple of weeks and then slowly faded away. Which is the same result I've had in the past. So I'm going to try the ZEOvit route and see how that goes.
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