Chaeto not doing great...a fuge issue?

[Siberwulf]

Ok, folks, I'm sure there's an easy answer here, but how do you maintain a fuge with Chaeto and control a GHA outbreak all at the same time? My nitrates are low, my phosphates are medium. Light in there was a little low while I battled bubble algae... On top of that, my coraline has had a wicked bleaching event the past few weeks that I think is related to low nitrates

I feel if I dose nitrates to keep those up, I'm only feeding it to the GHA, not to anything else. My chaeto is getting covered with GHA and bubble algae, and no matter how often I wash it, it's right back and getting smothered.

Need a little advice here :-/

Today's Tests:
Nitrates: 1ppm
Phosphates: .08ppm
Ca: 425
Mg: 1320
pH: Swings from 7.9-8.0
Salinity: 1.026

 

[mrlavalamp]

Your N to P ratio is really close to the redfield (16:1) which is where I try to keep the two numbers.

What is your alk? Having a good ca/alk balance is important for sustained coraline (and coral) growth.

What is your refugium flow like? I use a reactor for my chaeto and found that if flow is too low I get gha taking over and smothering the chaeto.

 

[Daniel]

Other questions...
- How long ago was the refugium established? (i.e. how old is the tank?)
- What's the flow like through the refugium?
- What lighting are you using in the refugium?
- Is the Chaeto alive or can you notice withering?

For me, the questions above all mattered... it wasn't until I hit around 7 or 8 months of tank age that Chaeto could survive, and I attribute that to 2 things: upgrading my lighting to Kessil H380, and dialing in the flow through my refugium (which is truly a goldilocks situation of can't be too fast nor too slow). Dosing ChaetoGRO from Brightwells may have also contributed to keeping chaeto efficient.

 

[landlubber]

i went through this for the better part of 2 years. its a battle because anything you add to encourage growth of chaeto also inspires algae to grow.
the thing that helped changed the balance for me was a committed effort to manual removal of the hair algae. I obviously don't know the circumstances of your aquascape but the next step that worked well for me was taking the most gha affected rocks out and using a spray bottle with peroxide to mist the surface along with a scrub from a brush, let sit for a few mins, plunge them in a fresh pail of saltwater to get the debris off and back in the tank.
it was all a pain but it also worked and has kept the algae at bay for almost 2 years since.

 

[Daniel]

There is one thing that you can manage variables on, and it's lighting in the fuge is separate than the lighting in the display. It's worth trying out more effective fuge lighting to outcompete the growth of nuisance algae in the display.

 

[Spare time]

Ok, folks, I'm sure there's an easy answer here, but how do you maintain a fuge with Chaeto and control a GHA outbreak all at the same time? My nitrates are low, my phosphates are medium. Light in there was a little low while I battled bubble algae... On top of that, my coraline has had a wicked bleaching event the past few weeks that I think is related to low nitrates

I feel if I dose nitrates to keep those up, I'm only feeding it to the GHA, not to anything else. My chaeto is getting covered with GHA and bubble algae, and no matter how often I wash it, it's right back and getting smothered.

Need a little advice here :-/

Today's Tests:
Nitrates: 1ppm
Phosphates: .08ppm
Ca: 425
Mg: 1320
pH: Swings from 7.9-8.0
Salinity: 1.026

Raise the nitrate. I would consider dosing flux. It might kill the chaeto but mine survived it without issue. Also consider dosing iron or something like chaetogro

 

[Siberwulf]

Other questions...
- How long ago was the refugium established? (i.e. how old is the tank?)
- What's the flow like through the refugium?
- What lighting are you using in the refugium?
- Is the Chaeto alive or can you notice withering?

For me, the questions above all mattered... it wasn't until I hit around 7 or 8 months of tank age that Chaeto could survive, and I attribute that to 2 things: upgrading my lighting to Kessil H380, and dialing in the flow through my refugium (which is truly a goldilocks situation of can't be too fast nor too slow). Dosing ChaetoGRO from Brightwells may have also contributed to keeping chaeto efficient.

So I've had this setup since Day 1, but I didn't have Chaeto in there until just recently to try to combat GHA. I did have some to start, but ended up with super clean water and...a ton of dinos. So I ended up trashing the chaeto until things were more stable.

It's a very high flow fuge. I'm rolling with the triton method so it's about 10x tank volume through there which is very turbulent. So turbulent, it can somewhat blast the chaeto into tiny bits which then get stuck in the grated overflow into the skimmer chamber. I don't know how to fix this. Putting it in a grid near the top just encouraged more algae growth, and this sucker wont' tumble to save its life....sooooo this is an open issue.

Lighting is solid. I currently have a AI Fuge 16. It was cranked down a bit, but I plan to adjust it to 100% at the risk of growing more GHA/Bubble down there.

It looks alive, but covered in non-chaeto growth right now, so it's a little tough to tell.

 

[Siberwulf]

Your N to P ratio is really close to the redfield (16:1) which is where I try to keep the two numbers.

What is your alk? Having a good ca/alk balance is important for sustained coraline (and coral) growth.

What is your refugium flow like? I use a reactor for my chaeto and found that if flow is too low I get gha taking over and smothering the chaeto.

I'm not auto-dosing Alk, but that's on my to-do list to setup. I've got the DOS system, just haven't set it up yet. Alk wavers between 7.5 and 8 as I dose it every few days to keep it from bottoming out. Flow is very high in there, almost to a fault, I think.

 

[Siberwulf]

There is one thing that you can manage variables on, and it's lighting in the fuge is separate than the lighting in the display. It's worth trying out more effective fuge lighting to outcompete the growth of nuisance algae in the display.

I currently run 3 AI Prime up top, on from 8am-8pm, and then run a AI Fuge below, at opposite hours. I had dialed it back a while ago, but today I brought it back up to 100%. Maybe that will help...or grow GHA better...I'm not sure :-/

 

[Betex]

I had a real hard time with my fuge as well but I think it was all part of flow there just wasnt enough of it. I ended up switching to a reactor as I couldnt deal with the chaeto going all over the place and there it grows like mad.

 

[Reef AquaCult]

try turf scrubber. if u got hair algae growing elsewhere it will grow like crazy in a scrubber. many people including myself struggle to grow chaeto

 

[Duncan62]

Ok, folks, I'm sure there's an easy answer here, but how do you maintain a fuge with Chaeto and control a GHA outbreak all at the same time? My nitrates are low, my phosphates are medium. Light in there was a little low while I battled bubble algae... On top of that, my coraline has had a wicked bleaching event the past few weeks that I think is related to low nitrates

I feel if I dose nitrates to keep those up, I'm only feeding it to the GHA, not to anything else. My chaeto is getting covered with GHA and bubble algae, and no matter how often I wash it, it's right back and getting smothered.

Need a little advice here :-/

Today's Tests:
Nitrates: 1ppm
Phosphates: .08ppm
Ca: 425
Mg: 1320
pH: Swings from 7.9-8.0
Salinity: 1.026

Harvest more . Add some white light. Cheato will do better.

 

[Siberwulf]

It's funny that this got a new reply! I was just mulling my Sump this AM and it's not pretty. It's growing things.. GHA, smaller Chaeto, some macro I've never seen before in my life that I certainly didn't put in there, but the DT is pretty clear. In fact, I just shaved an hour off the light cycle in the Sump to try to slow the uptake of NO3. I can't get it to read anything but zero, and this seemed like the least-invasive way to move the needle. Crossing some fingers.

 

[Duncan62]

It's funny that this got a new reply! I was just mulling my Sump this AM and it's not pretty. It's growing things.. GHA, smaller Chaeto, some macro I've never seen before in my life that I certainly didn't put in there, but the DT is pretty clear. In fact, I just shaved an hour off the light cycle in the Sump to try to slow the uptake of NO3. I can't get it to read anything but zero, and this seemed like the least-invasive way to move the needle. Crossing some fingers.

Harvest more often. Less algea less nutrients extracted. I've had dinos before by skipping a week and getting to 0s. Feed more. Good luck.