Chaeto not growing

anthonyt987

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I had chaeto in my tank a while ago and it only grew a little bit, a lot of died off when i treated the tank with flucanozle for bryopsis. Tank was also treated with vibrant so that didn't help. I had since gotten a new batch of chaeto and it has not grown in the past 2-3 months.

It has not died but it hasnt grown either, its a dark green color and kind of in small bunch strand rather than big loose bright green strand.

my nitrates are sitting around 15 and phosphate being .35

my sps is colored up even at this high nutrient level but I wanted to get my colors out.

any advice??
 

74rus

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I’ve had similar problems with chaeto and phosphate. Once phosphate dropped below 0.2 chaeto started to grow like weeds. Almost like that stuff hates really high phosphate level.
 

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Trace elements can also limit Chaeto growth, iron often being the limiting element. I suggest you add ChaetoGro.

Why 24/7 on Chaetomorphy lighting?

While 24/7 lighting is sometimes used with some phytoplankton cultures and was used on fast growing Caulerpa to prevent macro from going sexual, I see no advantage and potential problems. All photosynthetic organisms need a dark period.
 
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Subsea

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I’ve had similar problems with chaeto and phosphate. Once phosphate dropped below 0.2 chaeto started to grow like weeds. Almost like that stuff hates really high phosphate level.

I find it difficult to believe that high phosphate inhibits macro algae growth.

 
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PeterC99

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im ok with nitrates, ideally i would want phosphates to be under.1

i have kept it on 24/7 atm
previously it was opposite of the light schedule in the DT
PO4 not bad at .1.

Refugium lighting for chaeto should be opposite aquarium lights.

Sounds like you might want to try more flow in your refugium. Mine did not do well with The normal flow in my sump. Added small pump to increase flow and chaeto growth took off. Harvest every other week now.
 
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anthonyt987

anthonyt987

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Trace elements can also limit Chaeto growth, iron often being the limiting element. I suggest you add ChaetoGro.

Why 24/7 on Chaetomorphy lighting?

While 24/7 lighting is sometimes used with some phytoplankton cultures and was used on fast growing Caulerpa to prevent macro from going sexual, I see no advantage and potential problems. All photosynthetic organisms need a dark period.
I saw Jake Adams from reef builders doing it, so I was going to do so until my nutrients went down then change the schedule
 
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anthonyt987

anthonyt987

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PO4 not bad at .1.

Refugium lighting for chaeto should be opposite aquarium lights.

Sounds like you might want to try more flow in your refugium. Mine did not do well with The normal flow in my sump. Added small pump to increase flow and chaeto growth took off. Harvest every other week now.
I want it to be .1 at least lol at the moment its at .35
 

Subsea

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I saw Jake Adams from reef builders doing it, so I was going to do so until my nutrients went down then change the schedule

I don’t doubt that Jake Adam’s may be an expert coral grower, I am an expert at growing marine seaweeds and operated 10,000G greenhouse Macroalgae growout system of ediable Red Ogo for several years.

24 hour lighting is not good for photosynthetic organisms.
 
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anthonyt987

anthonyt987

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I don’t doubt that Jake Adam’s may be an expert coral grower, I am an expert at growing marine seaweeds and operated 10,000G greenhouse Macroalgae growout system of ediable Red Ogo for several years.

24 hour lighting is not good for photosynthetic organisms.
so just set it opposite to the DT schedule?
 

hart24601

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I run chaeto 24/7 depending on my nutrient levels. Works just fine. Remember the dark reactions in photosynthesis are called such not because they require darkness, but simply because they do not require light. It’s a bit misleading.

I sell my extra chaeto here on r2r and on ebay, pays for the running cost of the system. So 24/7 isn’t the problem as I have been running that way for years. Including a pic of a harvest although you can find my for sale thread and see pics there too


if you have detectable nitrate and phosphate then you are probably lacking some other elements, I had the same problem when setting this system up years ago, I added chaetogro on a doser, just a couple ml/day and it’s been fantastic ever since. I also have auto water change set up but it clearly wasn’t enough to supply elements. Every clump would get stringy and fall apart. Dramatic difference after adding chaetogro

you can switch to a reverse lighting schedule and some have better results, but that’s generally due to various limitation with nutrients.

Here is when I harvested too much, down to a golf ball. The side pic is 1 week later (note all 24/7 lighting). This is in a Rubbermaid sump contained in a laundry basket.

A2EE057A-C9E0-47AA-B978-66E98370021F.jpeg



Here is another week later, or 2 weeks from the 1st pic of a tiny clump.

31B33348-D0C4-4462-9ED8-7104B5647552.jpeg


One more week and this is after Harvesting some.
FF518155-E1A1-4B79-8C03-2CF2456BDE62.jpeg


later harvest of extra I gave away locally. Lights on 24/7. There was still enough left to regrow.
6C6DDA0D-CABD-49CE-AA9F-FCED8E9FC2AA.jpeg
 

Goaway

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I’ve had similar problems with chaeto and phosphate. Once phosphate dropped below 0.2 chaeto started to grow like weeds. Almost like that stuff hates really high phosphate level.
My old reef had over the top phosphates due to not knowing lava rock was bad. We are talking 20 years ago. I used chaeto to help get those phosphates down. Which worked. But I still had gha everywhere. Chaeto kept growing and so did the gha. Took 3 years before I found out it was my lava rocks fault.

Maybe it's different strains that hate phosphates. I have no idea.
 
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anthonyt987

anthonyt987

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I run chaeto 24/7 depending on my nutrient levels. Works just fine. Remember the dark reactions in photosynthesis are called such not because they require darkness, but simply because they do not require light. It’s a bit misleading.

I sell my extra chaeto here on r2r and on ebay, pays for the running cost of the system. So 24/7 isn’t the problem as I have been running that way for years. Including a pic of a harvest although you can find my for sale thread and see pics there too


if you have detectable nitrate and phosphate then you are probably lacking some other elements, I had the same problem when setting this system up years ago, I added chaetogro on a doser, just a couple ml/day and it’s been fantastic ever since. I also have auto water change set up but it clearly wasn’t enough to supply elements. Every clump would get stringy and fall apart. Dramatic difference after adding chaetogro

you can switch to a reverse lighting schedule and some have better results, but that’s generally due to various limitation with nutrients.

Here is when I harvested too much, down to a golf ball. The side pic is 1 week later (note all 24/7 lighting). This is in a Rubbermaid sump contained in a laundry basket.

A2EE057A-C9E0-47AA-B978-66E98370021F.jpeg



Here is another week later, or 2 weeks from the 1st pic of a tiny clump.

31B33348-D0C4-4462-9ED8-7104B5647552.jpeg


One more week and this is after Harvesting some.
FF518155-E1A1-4B79-8C03-2CF2456BDE62.jpeg


later harvest of extra I gave away locally. Lights on 24/7. There was still enough left to regrow.
6C6DDA0D-CABD-49CE-AA9F-FCED8E9FC2AA.jpeg
how much chaetogrow were you dosing?
 

Subsea

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I run chaeto 24/7 depending on my nutrient levels. Works just fine. Remember the dark reactions in photosynthesis are called such not because they require darkness, but simply because they do not require light. It’s a bit misleading.

I sell my extra chaeto here on r2r and on ebay, pays for the running cost of the system. So 24/7 isn’t the problem as I have been running that way for years. Including a pic of a harvest although you can find my for sale thread and see pics there too


if you have detectable nitrate and phosphate then you are probably lacking some other elements, I had the same problem when setting this system up years ago, I added chaetogro on a doser, just a couple ml/day and it’s been fantastic ever since. I also have auto water change set up but it clearly wasn’t enough to supply elements. Every clump would get stringy and fall apart. Dramatic difference after adding chaetogro

you can switch to a reverse lighting schedule and some have better results, but that’s generally due to various limitation with nutrients.

Here is when I harvested too much, down to a golf ball. The side pic is 1 week later (note all 24/7 lighting). This is in a Rubbermaid sump contained in a laundry basket.

A2EE057A-C9E0-47AA-B978-66E98370021F.jpeg



Here is another week later, or 2 weeks from the 1st pic of a tiny clump.

31B33348-D0C4-4462-9ED8-7104B5647552.jpeg


One more week and this is after Harvesting some.
FF518155-E1A1-4B79-8C03-2CF2456BDE62.jpeg


later harvest of extra I gave away locally. Lights on 24/7. There was still enough left to regrow.
6C6DDA0D-CABD-49CE-AA9F-FCED8E9FC2AA.jpeg

As I compare picture 1 at golf size to picture 2, I would estimate a minimum 20 fold increase in a span of 2 weeks with addittion of 2ml/day of ChaetoGro. Twenty fold increase in 2 weeks is phenomenal for a macro algae. I considered micro algae, phytoplankton, to be the fastest growing algae. In this culture, a 4 liter container with 16W of 5K spectrum lighting, the density doubles every 3 days. I dose 1ml/liter of a modified F2 fertilizer. So, in 6 days density is 4 fold, in 9 days density increase is 8 fold, in 12 days density increase is 16 fold. As I said, your growth rate for macro algae is phenomenal.

2ml/day into 150G ain’t much nutrients. It is, as you pointed out, a trace mineral. You must feed your 70G display quite a lot.

The physiology of macro algae when subjected to 24/7 lighting is different than when it is allowed to rest. I have grown Caulerpa under 24 hour lighting to stop it from going sexual. However, when a macro refugium is coupled to a display tank, I consider system dynamics from a holistic point of view. For example, if controlling pH fluctuation in display tank is considered a priority, than I disagree with 24/7 lighting in refugium. In your scenario, your refugium is twice the size of your display tank, so what I am going to say is not as pertinent for your system.

To evaluate macro performance, you can weigh it to determine growth rate in mass increase. However, while that macro mass increases, what does it put into the water. Because of the complexity of DOC, I am not going to include it in this conversation. Instead, I will focus on three things that are effected in the effluent from refugium back to the display tank: pH of water increases, due to uptake of carbon dioxide and the exudate of oxygen into the water. I consider elevated pH and oxygen in water going back to display tank the number 1 priority of my refugium. With that said, let’s conduct an experiment on a macro algae refugium to evaluate its dampening of pH & oxygen fluctuation in display tank during lights out.

Measure oxygen in & out of refugium with 24 hour lighting. Then run same system on 16hrs on and 8 hrs off. It may be necessary to measure several days to see if any acclimation time is required for stability. Using flow rate and oxygen concentration, you can calculate total oxygen pumped from refugium to display tank. Compare 24 hr lighting to 16 hr lighting to see system comparison.
 

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