Chaeto put to the test: Going beyond our expectations! (Part 1)

[Damon]

They said 12 hour lighting period..

 

[rinckemd]

They said 12 hour lighting period..

Thanks! Shouldn't listen while working

 

[Lifer]

Should cheato be swirling in the refug or is OK for it to just be in one spot. I've heard many different opinions on this

 

[WhiskeyCoffee]

I would like to see a longitudinal study of the effects of chaeto on overall water quality. Like set up a refugium with chaeto on a tank and take daily measurements of the water parameters and see the effect over several months.

 

[asnyder]

Hey guys!

Today we're updating you on the Chaetomorpha test that we have been brewing for the last few weeks. What we found about fuge size and PAR really surprised us, so we couldn't just stop there!

As you can tell from the title, we are going to be changing it up with this test and will continue the investigation. So check out this first installment of the Chaeto test and let us know your thoughts!





-Randy

Randy,

Thanks for the testing great job and very informative and peaks my interest. I'm currently using a reactor with refugium light strapped to the reactor to grow out my Chaetomorpha. I'm courses if this setup would yield different results since it forces water to flow directly through the chaeto ball? It certainly seems to grow out within less than a week and requires pruning more often vs a refugium where it has more room to grow out. With that being said eternal reactor takes up way less space. Most reefers I've seen online doing this use a flexible led refugium strip wrapped around the reactor. I used what I had, which was a 12" Refugium LED 4w finnex, and two little fishies reactor 150, 10 w rio return pump, Display is 20g jbj cube reef mix.

Andrew Snyder Wichita Falls TX.

 

[asnyder]

Randy,

Thanks for the testing great job and very informative and peaks my interest. I'm currently using a reactor with refugium light strapped to the reactor to grow out my Chaetomorpha. I'm courses if this setup would yield different results since it forces water to flow directly through the chaeto ball? It certainly seems to grow out within less than a week and requires pruning more often vs a refugium where it has more room to grow out. With that being said eternal reactor takes up way less space. Most reefers I've seen online doing this use a flexible led refugium strip wrapped around the reactor. I used what I had, which was a 12" Refugium LED 4w finnex, and two little fishies reactor 150, 10 w rio return pump, Display is 20g jbj cube reef mix.

Andrew Snyder Wichita Falls TX.

Opps Curious darn auto correct.

 

[Keiffer the reefer]

This is AWESOME!!! Great job. I can't wait to see your long term results. My tank has been running with no skimmer and only a fuge, chemipure blue and polyfilter since day one (1.5 yrs.). I've made some rookie mistakes that created nutrient spikes but mostly my nutrients are low enough for me (N = 5ppm w Red Sea ; PO4=.05 w Hanna ulr). I feed one cube hikari mega marine algae and one cube cyclopeeze daily. Plus feed 1" square of mysis to my anemone every other day. Very high bioload.

I found a thread on another forum that discussed a "duplex" refugium set up. I found this to be very effective at eliminating the detritus build up in the fuge and my algae growth really stepped up when I implemented the duplex set up.

I've also found that dosing 2ppm daily of sodium nitrate helps keep my phosphates lower. I have it on one of my dosing channels. My tank has nitrates even without dosing, which is kinda confusing to me. I wonder if that specific form of nitrate is more easily utilized by whatever algae or bacteria that is consuming phosphate.

 

[Jongalt26]

Oh man this one is awesome, thanks guys!
Any chance to do something similar but adding an an algae turf scrubber?

 

[tokigami]

which setup grows the biggest pod population. did you see a difference between one or the other?

 

[Trav7]

Hey guys!

Today we're updating you on the Chaetomorpha test that we have been brewing for the last few weeks. What we found about fuge size and PAR really surprised us, so we couldn't just stop there!

As you can tell from the title, we are going to be changing it up with this test and will continue the investigation. So check out this first installment of the Chaeto test and let us know your thoughts!





-Randy

Thanks for tests.. new to forum. Question in my sump right now I have live rock. Would you recommend live rock or chaetomorpha????
Thanks again videos are very helpful!

 

[reeferparty]

Perfect! My refugium baffle is arriving next week and this will help me decide on lighting and provide other insight!

 

[MIchael10101]

Hmmm... I wonder if doing this would cause less DT turnover and if so, to what effect?

It shouldn't affect the DT turnover. If your main pump is pushing out 100gph, it should stay the same. If you had two pumps, one going to the DT and other to the beginning of the fuge it would merely increase the flow to the fuge to 200gph.

 

[Bob agren]

I have 1 al 26 led pod on my Sump Chaeto grows like crazy 5 gal solid bucket I toss about every 2 mo plus feed fish. Water parameters are great. Pods love it and so does the fish. Run the led for 12 hrs per day. Ph adverage 8.2 24 hrs period. Heavy bioload here. Been doing this for 25yrs and had my ups and downs but Chae to in the sump has diffently made life of reefing a whole lot easier.

 

[Saltine]

I've run a fuge since I've started this hobby, since I had several people suggested it. I've had great luck!

Recently upgraded from a 55gal to 180g, moved a small handful of cheato (looked like it was dying, had close to 0 nitrates) and put it into the new sump/fuge for the 180.

The cheato has tripled in size and turned a much darker Green and I have yet to do a water change on this tank that I started about 10 weeks ago, nitrates undetectable....

Salt

 

[Joe Rice]

Brilliant. This is exactly the kind of experimentation the hobby needs!

Another bulb you might consider throwing into the mix:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GNWK2XO

 

[Wet_Fretboards]

This is perfect timing. Im about to set up a red sea reefer from scratch (everything so far bought from BRS including the tank), and I'm seriously considering using algal filtration only, be it macros or a turf scrubber.

Randy

 

[beastium]

lol @ the way he threw in the food

 

[randyBRS]

It would be awesome if BRS also integrates Chaeto reactors to these tests and discussion since space is limited in many sumps and with other equipment already installed, a refugium is just not feasible. Would definitely love to see your results on these reactors' effectiveness as a nutrient export method.

Randy,Thanks for the testing great job and very informative and peaks my interest. I'm currently using a reactor with refugium light strapped to the reactor to grow out my Chaetomorpha. I'm courses if this setup would yield different results since it forces water to flow directly through the chaeto ball? It certainly seems to grow out within less than a week and requires pruning more often vs a refugium where it has more room to grow out. With that being said eternal reactor takes up way less space. Most reefers I've seen online doing this use a flexible led refugium strip wrapped around the reactor. I used what I had, which was a 12" Refugium LED 4w finnex, and two little fishies reactor 150, 10 w rio return pump, Display is 20g jbj cube reef mix.Andrew Snyder Wichita Falls TX.

Oh man this one is awesome, thanks guys!
Any chance to do something similar but adding an an algae turf scrubber?

We do have a test on the docket for ATS's and I just added the Chaeto/Algae "Reactor" to it. I know many of us want to just how effective they are in comparison to a full fuge. From my experiences with an ATS, I foresee it being a really good test!

which setup grows the biggest pod population. did you see a difference between one or the other?

I would say that they were fairly equal for what we saw. The HOB fuge had the most visible micro-fauna, but I'd chalk that up to the small confined space.

-Randy

 

[beaslbob]

Randy:

the main surprise to me was how low the pH values were. But then you're using much more accurate and precise equipment than my api high range ph test kit. LOL.

I always get purple with that 8.4-8.8.

Some suggestions:

1) measure ph just before lights out.

2) I'm sorry you didn't measure ammonia. You should have found out that the chaeto results in low to no ammonia during the cycle with a possible bump up in nitrates. Then, as bacteria builds up, the nitrates finally drop down. So even in bacteria free tanks it prevents or at least limits that initial cycle.

3) to test out 2) dump some ammonia in the tanks and see what happens. This would simulate a bump in the night where ammonia spikes. (be prepared to test ammonia every couple of hours or so).

3) wanna get gutsy? throw a few ppm of copper in there and see what happens. Seriously! the chaeto will suck out copper. (and most other ions from what I hear)

Despite my suggestions this is an awesome test with some surprising results on the effects of the lights.

keep us posted

and how you read this as well. LOL

My .02

 

[Monkeynaut]

Great point! I will run this by the investigation team (well, Aaron and Ryan ) and see if we can to a quick measurement for the next installment.




These are on a 12hr light cycle.

-Randy

Yes. I too want to know Par and PUR for each light