Chaeto not growing

[scubaboy]

Good Morning,

So I am on my third round of chaeto and not understanding what I am missing. My tank is 8 months old. I thought I was past the uglys and starting to mature.

The first round as soon as I added it to my fuge it fell apart and went everywhere. I spent a couple of days trying to gather it and put it back in its chamber, but at the time I was just getting past a brown algae bloom. The chaeto just melted, not enough nutrients. My NO3 and PO4 were 0-0 with the ATI & Fluval test kits I had. I knew I had nutrients but the algae was taking it all up.

The second try was after the algae bloom died back, between my CUC and a few water changes, it just went away. I started seeing coralline on my dry rocks so I tried again. Replaced test kits. NO3 up to 10 ppm (Salifert) and PO4 up to .009 ppm (Hanna Phosphorus). Chaeto once again just fell apart and went everywhere. Bought a $6 cheap netted breeder box from PetSmart and hung it between the chambers and put all the chaeto pieces in it. Chaeto tumbles great now and I turned my Kessil H80 up to 24 hrs. a day. It still wasn't growing.

Third attempt, I added another golf ball size ball to the breeder. NO3 staying between 10-15 ppm. PO4 was up to .08 ppm for a couple of weeks. I cleaned the GHA that had started in my fuge when I did a water change. I have only been doing them when I need water for a QT, otherwise not doing routine WC's. Trying to get nutrients up. Brown algae and GHA bloomed in DT again. Chaeto is bright green, but not growing at all. NO3 still 10 ppm and PO4 dropped to .003 ppm. Coralline is exploding on my rocks.

I am running a Hybrid lighting set up, 2 - Kessil A360X's and T5's. T5's have been turned off for the last 2 months and Kessils run at 60% Intensity and Color only 10 hours a day thinking that would help keep the algae down.

I keep telling myself if I can get the algae beat back the chaeto will take over on the nutrients and start to grow.

What am I missing?

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[PeterC99]

Chaeto needs lighting schedule, flow, and nutrients.

Have you tried running refugium light schedule opposite your aquarium light schedule?

 

[scubaboy]

Chaeto needs lighting schedule, flow, and nutrients.

Have you tried running refugium light schedule opposite your aquarium light schedule?

Yes, I should have mentioned that I am now running it the 14 hours opposite the day lighting. I have been doing that a little over a week now.

 

[PeterC99]

With your chaeto starting to turn bright green now means that it’s starting to grow. Have you tried a chaeto grow product for faster growth?

 

[scubaboy]

With your chaeto starting to turn bright green now means that it’s starting to grow. Have you tried a chaeto grow product for faster growth?

No I haven't yet, I have thought about it but will that not just feed the algae growth in my DT even more?

Thanks for your responses!

 

[scubaboy]

No I haven't yet, I have thought about it but will that not just feed the algae growth in my DT even more?

Thanks for your responses!

Oh, and I should also mention that yes it is bright green, but it has been for weeks now. But the volume of it hasn't changed at all.

 

[hart24601]

Imo you need more grazers or other removal of the gha. In my experience chaeto Will not just outcompete gha, and they should be thought of as two items.

1) DT algae reduction. - good cuc, manual reduction until cuc keeps it under control

2) chaeto is for nutrient control - but it will not outcompete DT algae

While these are related, they are also distinctly different in my systems.

 

[anthonygf]

Hello Scubaboy. I also had a problem with Chaeto in the past. I switched to grape calerpa and stays alive and slowly growing. You may want to try this. I have to manually rotate mine because it does not tumble in my setup. good luck.

 

[anthonygf]

I also have 300+ snails in my 75, still have algae growing.

 

[scubaboy]

Imo you need more grazers or other removal of the gha. In my experience chaeto Will not just outcompete gha, and they should be though of as two items.

1) DT algae reduction. - good cuc, manual reduction until cuc keeps it under control

2) chaeto is for nutrient control - but it will not outcompete DT algae

While these are related, they are also distinctly different in my systems.

Thank you. I will do a large WC and manually remove the GHA. I have 6 Turbos and 4 Trochus in my 105 gallon and they did real well on the rock at first but have been spending much of their time on the film on the glass. I'll relocate them too.

 

[scubaboy]

Hello Scubaboy. I also had a problem with Chaeto in the past. I switched to grape calerpa and stays alive and slowly growing. You may want to try this. I have to manually rotate mine because it does not tumble in my setup. good luck.

Thanks, I may try that also.

 

[anthonygf]

Thank you. I will do a large WC and manually remove the GHA. I have 6 Turbos and 4 Trochus in my 105 gallon and they did real well on the rock at first but have been spending much of their time on the film on the glass. I'll relocate them too.

Go to ReefCleaners.com, get 150+ zig zag periwinkles, they are only .15 cents each and are small, 100+ Dwarf Ceriths, .17 cents each, I also have 6 limpets, several other larger snails. Most stay on the rocks and in the sand. At night my glass is covered with small snails and retreat back to the sand when the lights ramp up. My sand is always clean of algae.

 

[hart24601]

Thank you. I will do a large WC and manually remove the GHA. I have 6 Turbos and 4 Trochus in my 105 gallon and they did real well on the rock at first but have been spending much of their time on the film on the glass. I'll relocate them too.

Sounds like a plan! Tux urchins also work great and urchins are the main algae eating force in the ocean if you are ok with gluing frags down!

It has become more accepted as n the past few years that algae reduction in display isn’t best obtained by nutrient limitation but by organisms consuming it or bio films or other mechanisms not letting it attach and get started. Macro algae works great to reduce nutrients in general, but not as well for directly combating display algae.

 

[EugeneVan]

I have the similar issue with Chaeto when using strong light and running opposite of day light too. What I figure out are beside NO3 and PO3 dosing, you need to dose heavily stable form of iron. My Chaeto turn from light green color (almost all dead) and come back strong with deep green color after daily dosing iron for a week. I am using Brightwell Ferrion.

 

[anthonygf]

I tried dosing with iron and reduced my po4 to near zero. Brightwell Aquatics Ferrion, I followed directions but maybe I dosed too much.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

Thank you. I will do a large WC and manually remove the GHA. I have 6 Turbos and 4 Trochus in my 105 gallon and they did real well on the rock at first but have been spending much of their time on the film on the glass. I'll relocate them too.

I would removed as much by hand as you can and then maybe consider an urchin in addition to the clean up crew you have to help your chaeto better out compete the left over nutrients that the GHA is no longer able to consume.

 

[Pistondog]

Par needs to increase.
Get a stronger light and make sure the chaeto is near the surface, it does not need to tumble.

 

[EugeneVan]

I tried dosing with iron and reduced my po4 to near zero. Brightwell Aquatics Ferrion, I followed directions but maybe I dosed too much.

I keep my PO4 at about .05ppm by daily dosing PO4. NO3 at 5ppm and I dose 5 ml Ferrion daily for my 200 gal reef tank and magic happen after a week of dosing.

 

[scubaboy]

I would removed as much by hand as you can and then maybe consider an urchin in addition to the clean up crew you have to help your chaeto better out compete the left over nutrients that the GHA is no longer able to consume.

Will do!

 

[EugeneVan]

Par needs to increase.
Get a stronger light and make sure the chaeto is near the surface, it does not need to tumble.

The stronger the light, the more dosing on PO2, NO3 and Fe need to put into the water to keep up with the grow otherwise they are going to melt and died unless you keep overfeed and have lot of fish in your tank