Chaeto falling apart, why?

[Carlo]

hello everyone. I recently realized my chaeto has gotten a lot smaller and is falling apart, almost seems like it's rotting. I got it about 3 months ago from the lfs and it was healthy thick dark green about the size of a baseball. It grew to about the size of an American football about 2 months in. Today I noticed the vents from the fuge to the skimmer compartment were packed with broken off chaeto so I go to inspect it and notice how small and frail it is. What has happened? I've changed nothing. It's got a good led light that I got from marine depot.i can't remember the name but it was like $70 and had good reviews so i doubt it's that. Plus it made it multiply in size at first. The only thing I've done differently is more frequent water changes. Could it be that there aren't enough nutrients to sustain it? Have I achieved that level of po4 and no3?! Lol no but seriously what could be going on? I'm about to chuck the whole thing befor it clogs everything and just get a new one.

 

[Big G]

When you add RODI water to your system, does it make direct contact with the chaeto? Some have had problems this way. It creates massive swings in salinity that chaeto does not like. It turns kinda grey looking.
What are your numbers on po4 and no3?

 

[Carlo]

When you add RODI water to your system, does it make direct contact with the chaeto? Some have had problems this way. It creates massive swings in salinity that chaeto does not like. It turns kinda grey looking.
What are your numbers on po4 and no3?

Well my ro water tops off into the drain section of the sump so no it doesn't hit it derectly. But now that you mention that, for the last two weeks I've been bumping up the salinity with the last couple water changes and I normally pour it into the refugium. My po4 was maybe 0.02 if that and my nitrates were unditectable with my test kit. This was 2 weeks ago.

 

[cracker]

I see it's been answered already

 

[Katrina71]

When you add RODI water to your system, does it make direct contact with the chaeto? Some have had problems this way. It creates massive swings in salinity that chaeto does not like. It turns kinda grey looking.
What are your numbers on po4 and no3?

Good point. I guess I will be topping off in a different area. Thanks!

 

[dangros]

It could be any number of things: 1) Low nutrients, 2) low light (I know you said the light got good reviews but keep reading) 3) wrong nutrients, 4) out competed by things in the DT 5) lack of flow 6) when thick enough, the cheato on the bottom of the ball tends to get blocked from the light b/c the ball gets too dense. There are probably many other reasons, some of them unknown as well. Anyhow, I had the same experience. When I first put cheato in the sump, it grew quite well. After a couple of weeks, it needed to be cut back. However, a few weeks or months later, it started to slowly die off. It never went away completely but at one point it was about 90% gone and I almost gave up.
I tried the power compacts, LED purplish grow lights, and blue LED's from amazon but nothing seemed to help much. Eventually, I stumbled across a thread about building a box out of egg crate and putting the cheato it in. I liked the idea so I tried it. It made it easy to trim back and helped keep cheato from flowing all over the sump. It seemed to help a bit. My guess is that the egg crate helped b/c it got it really close to the surface of the water and off the bottom of the fuge. It was now closer to the light source. The deeper the cheato lies, the more light is absorbed/reflected away from it by the water. Seeing this improvement in growth encouraged me to up my light power so I added a 2nd bulb (one of my grow leds) to my power compact. This seemed to help a little bit. A few weeks ago, I purchased a couple of GHL Mitras lights for my DT to replace my Kessil 360WE's. Since I had a couple 360we's laying around, I used one of them to replace the 2 bulbs that I was using in the sump. BOOM! The cheato has now been exploding in growth. It really made a huge difference. BRS has a video on their kessil h380 and it's impact on growing macro algae. I recommend it even though I'm using a slightly different albeit as powerful a light.
So in summary, I think pulling it off the bottom of the sump, adding a TON more light, and patience will do the trick.

 

[dangros]

@cracker, I dont think you can have too much. The BRS video will show that.
@Katrina71 - I agree. Initially, I think my kalkwasser reactor which dumps into my fuge impacted growth as well. Having said that, once I put in more light the cheato grew well. Having said THAT, my reactor is dripping into the sump very slowly and an ATO tends to dump higher amounts.

 

[Carlo]

It could be any number of things: 1) Low nutrients, 2) low light (I know you said the light got good reviews but keep reading) 3) wrong nutrients, 4) out competed by things in the DT 5) lack of flow 6) when thick enough, the cheato on the bottom of the ball tends to get blocked from the light b/c the ball gets too dense. There are probably many other reasons, some of them unknown as well. Anyhow, I had the same experience. When I first put cheato in the sump, it grew quite well. After a couple of weeks, it needed to be cut back. However, a few weeks or months later, it started to slowly die off. It never went away completely but at one point it was about 90% gone and I almost gave up.
I tried the power compacts, LED purplish grow lights, and blue LED's from amazon but nothing seemed to help much. Eventually, I stumbled across a thread about building a box out of egg crate and putting the cheato it in. I liked the idea so I tried it. It made it easy to trim back and helped keep cheato from flowing all over the sump. It seemed to help a bit. My guess is that the egg crate helped b/c it got it really close to the surface of the water and off the bottom of the fuge. It was now closer to the light source. The deeper the cheato lies, the more light is absorbed/reflected away from it by the water. Seeing this improvement in growth encouraged me to up my light power so I added a 2nd bulb (one of my grow leds) to my power compact. This seemed to help a little bit. A few weeks ago, I purchased a couple of GHL Mitras lights for my DT to replace my Kessil 360WE's. Since I had a couple 360we's laying around, I used one of them to replace the 2 bulbs that I was using in the sump. BOOM! The cheato has now been exploding in growth. It really made a huge difference. BRS has a video on their kessil h380 and it's impact on growing macro algae. I recommend it even though I'm using a slightly different albeit as powerful a light.
So in summary, I think pulling it off the bottom of the sump, adding a TON more light, and patience will do the trick.

Awesome, thank you. I'm gonna try some of that. I also have the light only running at night only so I'll try running it all day and see how that goes. I was looking at the h380 but 300 bucks for a fuge light hurts lol. I remember starting that brs video but I don't think I finished it. I'll revisit it once I get a chance.

 

[Big G]

Awesome, thank you. I'm gonna try some of that. I also have the light only running at night only so I'll try running it all day and see how that goes. I was looking at the h380 but 300 bucks for a fuge light hurts lol. I remember starting that brs video but I don't think I finished it. I'll revisit it once I get a chance.

I've had some pretty good results with this light I got from Amazon:
"Roleadro Panel Grow Light Series,45W LED Plant Grow Light with Red Blue Spectrum for Growing&Flowering"

My wife uses these to grow vegetable seedlings in her greenhouse. I got curious and tried one. Works pretty good for about 25 bucks. I made a holder out of pvc pipe that rests on top of my sump. So it's about 7-8" above the water level. I run it all night opposite of the tank light time.

That being said, I also watched that video from BRS. They got amazing results in their tests. Not just for chaeto production but reduction of algae in the main tank. That was surprising.

Thinking about some of the fuge lights vendors are selling. Some of them are very, very low wattage LEDs. I've seen some that are only 7 watts? Things that make you go hmm.

Cheers!

 

[Chiefmaster30]

@Big G what's the dimensions of the light you got from amazon. Couldn't find it on Amazon. Thanks!

 

[XNavyDiver]

hello everyone. I recently realized my chaeto has gotten a lot smaller and is falling apart, almost seems like it's rotting. I got it about 3 months ago from the lfs and it was healthy thick dark green about the size of a baseball. It grew to about the size of an American football about 2 months in. Today I noticed the vents from the fuge to the skimmer compartment were packed with broken off chaeto so I go to inspect it and notice how small and frail it is. What has happened? I've changed nothing. It's got a good led light that I got from marine depot.i can't remember the name but it was like $70 and had good reviews so i doubt it's that. Plus it made it multiply in size at first. The only thing I've done differently is more frequent water changes. Could it be that there aren't enough nutrients to sustain it? Have I achieved that level of po4 and no3?! Lol no but seriously what could be going on? I'm about to chuck the whole thing befor it clogs everything and just get a new one.

Hey Carlo, just an FYI, but I bit the bullet some time ago and sprung for a Kessil h380. And it grew cheato like a champ. Then, like you, after some time it got brittle...pieces breaking off, growth pretty much halted. This is my thoughts on why; I started the tank with dry rock. I put very few fish in, and put just a handful of sps frags in. It didn't have enough no3/po4 to sustain its initial growth. Once it became depleted (I've always measured nearly undetectable no3), it started breaking apart. Now, I've been dosing small amounts (10ml) of Flourish no3 for the last couple of weeks to get the no3 up (about every other day), and now my no3 is finally showing up at about .75-1.00ppm and the cheato is getting back to health. It's no longer breaking apart, its strong. I think in a few weeks I'll be back to harvesting portions for export. What I really need to do is get more fish in the tank. I don't have any big fertilizer producers in the tank. I think a Kole tang is in my near future.

 

[Big G]

Search "Roleadro Panel Grow Light" it's now 26.99 on Amazon. There are lots of these approx. 12" x 12" panels. But this one is made of aluminum. Some of the cheaper ones are made with plastic. This one has gotten great reviews and my wife has used them for about 3 years growing vegetable seedlings. They work great. Puts out a pink light and it does not use much electricity. I like it because it is just about the same size of the area in my sump where my heater and chaeto are located.

 

[Big G]

Hey Carlo, just an FYI, but I bit the bullet some time ago and sprung for a Kessil h380. And it grew cheato like a champ. Then, like you, after some time it got brittle...pieces breaking off, growth pretty much halted. This is my thoughts on why; I stared the tank with dry rock. I put very few fish in, and put just a handful of sps frags in. It didn't have enough no3/po4 to sustain its initial growth. Once it became depleted (I've always measured nearly undetectable no3), it started breaking apart. Now, I've been dosing small amounts (10ml) of Flourish no3 for the last couple of weeks to get the no3 up (about every other day), and now my no3 is finally showing up at about .75-1.00ppm and the cheato is getting back to health. It's no longer breaking apart, its strong. I think in a few weeks I'll be back to harvesting portions for export. What I really need to do is get more fish in the tank. I don't have any big fertilizer producers in the tank. I think a Kole tang is in my near future.

Kole Tangs are awesome.

 

[Carlo]

Hey Carlo, just an FYI, but I bit the bullet some time ago and sprung for a Kessil h380. And it grew cheato like a champ. Then, like you, after some time it got brittle...pieces breaking off, growth pretty much halted. This is my thoughts on why; I started the tank with dry rock. I put very few fish in, and put just a handful of sps frags in. It didn't have enough no3/po4 to sustain its initial growth. Once it became depleted (I've always measured nearly undetectable no3), it started breaking apart. Now, I've been dosing small amounts (10ml) of Flourish no3 for the last couple of weeks to get the no3 up (about every other day), and now my no3 is finally showing up at about .75-1.00ppm and the cheato is getting back to health. It's no longer breaking apart, its strong. I think in a few weeks I'll be back to harvesting portions for export. What I really need to do is get more fish in the tank. I don't have any big fertilizer producers in the tank. I think a Kole tang is in my near future.

Awesome advice, thank you. I'll start feeding these new frags I got with reef roids, that should help a bit I think.

 

[ReefHog]

Any updates on the chaeto breaking apart.

 

[Reef of Fillory]

I had the same thing happening in my tank and figured that I had 0 nitrates after buying a new test kit. I have started dosing nitrate periodically. I just put chaeto back into the system yesterday. I'll let you know if the added nitrates push the chaeto to grow.