Chaeto Test Part II: Closing out the old and introducing the next evolution! | BRS Investigates

[JoshuaBrown]

I'd love to be able to test my lights par and pur. There are currently no reef clubs in my area so I don't have access to a meter. I am documenting my results with the light. Started a couple days ago. On the 3rd day of the led.
I am super excited about the renewed interest in refugiums. And am afraid people are gonna get turned off when they realize how expensive it was to get the 4x cheato growth in 7 weeks that BRSI got. But it is possible on a minimal budget, just like the SunSpect 165W I've been running that is capable of producing wayy more light that I will even need in that tank.
Sorry if I came off confrontational, I just try to defend these cheaper options when they are good options, this space has been such a rich mans hobby for so long, I feel like alot of tech gets noses turned up at it simply because its a great deal cheaper than the options that have traditionally been more expensive and are now more heavily marketed.

Said documentation:

 

[Ryanbrs]

I recently purchase the Kessil H380. My issue has been ok macro growth, but crazy growth on the glass!! Any ideas?!

The high par light is going to support growth of any algae in the fuge including hair algae. We had the same issue on the BRS160 for a couple weeks and found just cleaning off the hair algae manually for a couple weeks priovided enough time for the cheato to become the dominant algae in the fuge and hair algae hasn't been an issue since. We also had the same issue and results with one of the early versions of the cheato test.

 

[randyBRS]

I'm a little disappointed you dropped the par38 in favor of the CFL. I'm all for using cheaper options that work in this hobby, but I think your previous test eliminated the CFL as a true competitor when you are dropping money on a reef tank. Par38's remain viable, and there are even custom red/blue par38s available on the market that may not beat a h380, but would probably give the h80 a thorough beating. The par38 does take up a significant amount of space, so the h80 is still valuable for space limited applications.

I think there definitely is some value in those PAR38 bulbs, which we can see real results from the first test. I don't doubt their ability to potentially beat out the H80! I think so many reefers (including myself) have used and have seen results from the CFL, so much so, that I'm personally interested in its performance against these Kessil lights to see if it is worth the larger $$ gap.

If only we had another side-by-side test tank to bring the PAR38 in with the rest... . Unfortunately we can only test three, with one chamber being a control.

-Randy

 

[petemichelle]

Solid move on the quarantine. Cheato can have all kinds of other organisms in it.

what are the parameters of the water in the test?? magnesium, , dkh, calcium, salinity??? can't grow chaeto to save my life.

 

[bif24701]

This is the brightest, biggest, baddest light I've ever seen over a Aquarium Fuge, LOL. Here goes nothing!!

BTW, it lights up my entire two car garage alone.

Will take some PAR measurements tomorrow.

 

[bif24701]

I recently purchase the Kessil H380. My issue has been ok macro growth, but crazy growth on the glass!! Any ideas?!

Keep cleaning up the other algae. And get some black acrylic to prevent light spilling to other equipment like that skimmer and growing algae in it.

 

[bif24701]

This is very impressive! The light prevented my pH from dropping below 8.2 last night. With 300 total gallons and only a ~8-10 gallon space used for cheato it achieved a rise in minimal pH around .5-.8, not too bad.

 

[JamesP]

Thats pretty awesome. Im currently rearranging my sump so I can do the same. My space will be about 10 gallons for a 150 gallon total system volume and I was wondering if it would be enough. I have an h380 also. Sounds like its enough to me. My ph currently swings between 8.0 and 8.2 without a fuge.

 

[bif24701]

Thats pretty awesome. Im currently rearranging my sump so I can do the same. My space will be about 10 gallons for a 150 gallon total system volume and I was wondering if it would be enough. I have an h380 also. Sounds like its enough to me. My ph currently swings between 8.0 and 8.2 without a fuge.

Yea, I think so. I only have enough cheato to fill the area only about 2-3" deep or less. When it's thicker in sure it will be better.

Another HUGE observation, with all my past lighting cyano grew as well if not better that cheato in the fuge. However, i see almost zero cyano!!! WOW! I have no idea why but I've seen others had observed the same thing. That's a big deal because I feel the cyano may have been competing with or inhibiting the cheato.

 

[bif24701]

This guy seems to have made the same observations as I have.

So I think I found the Holy Grail in Refugium Lighting

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sh.../forums/showthread.php?t=2630307&share_type=t

 

[JamesP]

Lol, see the quote in the thread...

"A little place I know, The People's Republic of China. Also known as, EBay."

So true

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I know this kind of goes against what reefers are commonly told but the glass is often enough surface area. That said we also ran an air driven sponge filter on the tanks. I did test for ammonia from time to time but not nitrite. Related to that I think there are a lot of people that suspect that cheato actually prefers ammonia over nitrate as it's nitrogen source. We have been thinking about methods of identifying if that is true.

I can add from my experience keeping freshwater planted tanks, is that they are pretty much fish ready with no risk of ammonia burn because the plants prefer to take up ammonia to nitrates. Farmers often use pure anhydrous ammonia(99% purity, store ammonia is only 3% and 97% water) as a nitrogen source for crops. I understand none of this is chaetomorpha, but plants are plants. My experience is they will remove ammonia from an aquarium.

 

[JamesP]

So this would make chaeto a natural alternatuve to zeolites which would mean you can pull out that reactor and put in a fuge. The fuge does so much more than zeolites too. Co2 reduction, ph stabilization, nitrate reduction, phosphate reduction, copepod breeding ground, and of course amonia reduction as we are discussing.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I've been having trouble actually getting chaeto to grow... I feed pellets or one cube of mysis a day and the chaeto went from a baseball last week to a golfball this week. Running a par38 in a spectrum for algae, good flow... Not sure what I'm going wrong.

 

[JamesP]

I wonder if co2 can be a limiting factor in some of these setups. People actually dose co2 in grow rooms and in planted tanks to encourage growth.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I wonder if co2 can be a limiting factor in some of these setups. People actually dose co2 in grow rooms and in planted tanks to encourage growth.

That's a great idea, I actually dose a liquid CO2 booster in my freshwater planted tanks. I'll have to check and see if they are reef safe.

This was a two weeks ago, plans have doubled in size with CO2 and fertilizer.

 

[JamesP]

I may end up unplugging my external skimmer airline once im up and running to give the chaeto more co2

 

[bif24701]

I've been having trouble actually getting chaeto to grow... I feed pellets or one cube of mysis a day and the chaeto went from a baseball last week to a golfball this week. Running a par38 in a spectrum for algae, good flow... Not sure what I'm going wrong.

You simply may not be feeding enough, nothing for it to grow with.

 

[KDuck]

Great work BRS team. Keep. The experiments coming.
I wish I had room in my sump for a refugium, but I would have to eliminate my skimmer to do it.

 

[RudyB]

I use chato, culerpa and mangroves in my refugium and it has been working great. I am building a new stand for my 150g tank. Since I have to take everything out and put it back in I am also going to build a new refugium that focuses on all natural filtration. I will be adding a better light as well from your (BRS) investigation "Thanks". Right now the only other thing that I use is some carbon (BRS ROX .8) in a reactor to polish the water and a protein skimmer. My tank is always crystal clear. Thanks to BRS for all those great videos.