Chaeto growth

4fishman · Nov 20, 2017

I understand the nutrient reduction benefits of chaeto. I've recently upgraded my sump, added a kessil h80 light. My nitrates and phosphates are at or near zero, ph 8.2 to 8.4. Algae has reduced to almost nothing visible, a few traces in the sump. Tank appears healthy.
My concern is that the chaeto does not grow. I bought a fistful about 2 months ago and it hasn't really grown. I have a 90 gallon tank with a fairly small bioload. Any comments?

XNavyDiver · Nov 20, 2017

4fishman said:
I understand the nutrient reduction benefits of chaeto. I've recently upgraded my sump, added a kessil h80 light. My nitrates and phosphates are at or near zero, ph 8.2 to 8.4. Algae has reduced to almost nothing visible, a few traces in the sump. Tank appears healthy.
My concern is that the chaeto does not grow. I bought a fistful about 2 months ago and it hasn't really grown. I have a 90 gallon tank with a fairly small bioload. Any comments?

Sounds like it's done exactly what you wanted it to do. The chaeto, like most plants, won't grow fast in a depleated nutrient enviroment, which is exactly why we put it in our sumps. You're just gonna have to wait longer periods of time to harvest/export the cheato. Which sounds like a win/win scenario to me.

BlueCursor · Nov 20, 2017

There are many different species of chaeto. The kind that is very curled strands and a tight ball tends to grow very slowly in my experience. The varieties that grow with straighter strings grow much faster. I have a variety that doubles in size every few weeks. The same tank with the tight ball variety barely grows at all. Eventually I threw out the tight ball stuff and stick to the stretched out stringy chaeto. It doesn't tumble, gets into things unlike the tight ball, but grows like mad.