Refugium failed

[lavoisier]

Do you got a pic on how this is set up ?

I keep my chaeto under my tank in a section of the sump that gets good flow.

Another thought. I know it is frustrating to spend $$ and have something fail but I have always found Algae Barn to deliver high quality products. I would encourage you to use them again if you order more chaeto. :)

 

[nukemdanno]

This is what I use....Chaeto also needs Iron are you dosing any kind of trace element? I use Chaeto grow

 

[jmichaelh7]

I keep my chaeto under my tank in a section of the sump that gets good flow.

Another thought. I know it is frustrating to spend $$ and have something fail but I have always found Algae Barn to deliver high quality products. I would encourage you to use them again if you order more chaeto. :)

You have a custom rack built in to hang your lights ?

 

[Dkmoo]

Unfortunately "too little light" and "too much light" can both cause chaeto to melt. IME you can tell based on how it turns white - if its turning white uniformly, or from the bottom first - that means you probably have too weak light or not enough nutrient. If its turning white from the top in the middle (the part directly under lights, then its being burned.

Simply based on what you said, assume nutrient is sufficient, I suspect your light is not strong enough - keep in mind that you are not just trying to give it enough light for it to grow. In a separate tank with only chaeto, this light might be good enough to grow chaeto as longas you maintain the nutriebt. However, in a system as a part of the sump and DT, the light also need to be strong enough to effectively compete against the algae thats growing in your DT thats under hundreds of dollars of fancy light with hundreds of PAR thats specifically geared for algae growth. In this setup, a 20 dollar home depo light is no where near enough.

The other factor is that the chaeto need to have enough critical mass to survive - esp if light alone is not enough to outcompete the algae in your DT. Other words, if light intensity cannot outcompete the algae in your DT, then it needs to be able to outcompete with sheer volume.

Not enough of any of the above will cause your chaeto to fail.

On my system I have 2 AI prime for my DT and my refugium is under a kessil h380. I grow chaeto like crazy - so much so that I have to limit my light period in the fuge bc its too effective that its starving my corals.

 

[jmichaelh7]

Unfortunately "too little light" and "too much light" can both cause chaeto to melt. IME you can tell based on how it turns white - if its turning white uniformly, or from the bottom first - that means you probably have too weak light or not enough nutrient. If its turning white from the top in the middle (the part directly under lights, then its being burned.

Simply based on what you said, assume nutrient is sufficient, I suspect your light is not strong enough - keep in mind that you are not just trying to give it enough light for it to grow. In a separate tank with only chaeto, this light might be good enough to grow chaeto as longas you maintain the nutriebt. However, in a system as a part of the sump and DT, the light also need to be strong enough to effectively compete against the algae thats growing in your DT thats under hundreds of dollars of fancy light with hundreds of PAR thats specifically geared for algae growth. In this setup, a 20 dollar home depo light is no where near enough.

The other factor is that the chaeto need to have enough critical mass to survive - esp if light alone is not enough to outcompete the algae in your DT. Other words, if light intensity cannot outcompete the algae in your DT, then it needs to be able to outcompete with sheer volume.

Not enough of any of the above will cause your chaeto to fail.

On my system I have 2 AI prime for my DT and my refugium is under a kessil h380. I grow chaeto like crazy - so much so that I have to limit my light period in the fuge bc its too effective that its starving my corals.

Well said

 

[lavoisier]

You have a custom rack built in to hang your lights ?

No, I built my stand with dimensional lumber. The lights are attached to a 2x4 above the refugium section of my sump.

 

[316Fin]

Unfortunately "too little light" and "too much light" can both cause chaeto to melt. IME you can tell based on how it turns white - if its turning white uniformly, or from the bottom first - that means you probably have too weak light or not enough nutrient. If its turning white from the top in the middle (the part directly under lights, then its being burned.

Hey, I had the same thing happen to my hang on fuge. Where my cheato turned white throughout the mass all at the same time. So would you suggest that it is too little light? I have around .25 nitrates, .3 phos and only an anemone with some fish in the tank at the moment. I have the tunze refugium light submerged. But it is a 10gal hang on fuge that I made, and the cheato is at the bottom so perhaps there is too much distance between the light and the cheato? I am thinking to buy the kessil H160 to increase the par output.

 

[Dkmoo]

Hey, I had the same thing happen to my hang on fuge. Where my cheato turned white throughout the mass all at the same time. So would you suggest that it is too little light? I have around .25 nitrates, .3 phos and only an anemone with some fish in the tank at the moment. I have the tunze refugium light submerged. But it is a 10gal hang on fuge that I made, and the cheato is at the bottom so perhaps there is too much distance between the light and the cheato? I am thinking to buy the kessil H160 to increase the par output.

that def sounds like its a case of one or more of "too low nutrient/too low light/too low volume/too low competition". Lets go thru each:

On nutrient:
1) do you mean .3Po4 or .03 PH4? .3 is wayyyy too high and should have cause other issues with your tank (ie massive algae/diatom bloom). in either case - chaeto absorbs no3/po4 in a fixed ratio so it will be limited by the no3 in your water.
2) the .25 NO3 is definitely on the low side - but that is only what's in your water. However, you gotta think about why its so low - Is it because you just have a low bioload now? or is it because the No3/Po4 is already all absorbed by the algae growing in your DT? From what you mentioned - i suspect its the former since you said you only ahve a few fish and a nem. But if it's the latter, then you can also tell easily by how much algae is in your DT.
2) If it's due to low bioload, then really your system doesn't need a fuge yet. Just wait until you have more stuff in the DT before you activate a fuge
3) If there's a ton of algae growing on your DT, then its a competition issue (more on that later)

On volume:
1) How much chaeto did you start off with? in terms of the no3/po4 absorption rate - just because you have .25 NO3 doesn't mean that all that will be available for your chaeto to absorb. Since it's measured in PPM, we gotta think about how much "surface area per volume" is exposed to how much light between your fuge vs DT to see relatively how effective it is being absorbed everywhere. looking at your build thread, you ahve a 65G DT. How how much surface area in your DT compared to your fuge "per 10 gallon"? you don't have to be exact and can just approximate. Chances are your DT has much higher surface area per 10G b/c of the various rockwork etc where algae is growing and absorbing light.
2) So - even assuming SAME light intensity - the lower surface area means that less than the full .25No3 is available for your chaeto.

On lighting
1) i've actually heard good reviews on the Tunze submersibles, esp if you submerge it and put right next to the chaeto, though it probably isn't not as strong as your DT in terms of raw PAR output. having it much closer should narrow the gap a bit. looking at your built thread it looks like your fuge is "thin but wide" so maybe the light is not evenly distributed - ie the far end may be too dark. Keep in mind that light intensity decreases inversely by the square of the distance - meaning, 2x further away means 4x less light. 3x further away means 9x less light.
2) Getting the H160 may not solve your problem b/c it's a even more "concentrated" source of light instead of the Tunze light strip. B/c i believe your light "spread" problem is a bigger issue than light "intensity" problem.
3) if indeed you determined it's a light issue and not a volume/nutrient issue, then maybe just get 1 more tunze and put on the opposite side, or 3 (put one in the middle), depending on the exact dimensions and spread of your fuge.

On competition
1) if you have very strong algae growth in the DT, then it boils down to competition so I would recommend increasing the first three points. I would not recommend "maxing" one while ignoring the other b/c there's a maximum thresold to all of them. IE - if you don't have enough nutrient, or not enough volume. putting 50 tunze lights in there won't help b/c chaeto has a maximum light absorption threshold and will probably die from burn out. I also wouldn't try to stuff the fuge full of chaeto b/c if its another factor causing the issue, then all of those will melt and crash your tank.
2) manual removal of the DT algae to reduce the competition from DT,
3) reduce lighting on your DT (if ur livestock can tolerate it).

Taken everything together - my money is on the theory that you don't have enough bioload right now given the few fish + 1 nem in a huge 65G. So i would recommend just don't use a fuge b/c you have low nutrient and it'll be very difficult to bring that last .25 NO3 down to 0 (given what i discussed above with the volume, surface area, etc). But, you know your own tank better than I do, so.. adjust accordingly based on what you see

Good luck!

 

[316Fin]

that def sounds like its a case of one or more of "too low nutrient/too low light/too low volume/too low competition". Lets go thru each:

Thank you so much! That was very helpful! It looks like I made a mistake on reading the nitrate test. I assumed that the numbers were all reading the same, but realized there were decimal points :/ So it looks like its 25 nitrates, the 3rd highest colour on the cart. As for the phos, it was definitely around that .3-.25 ppm range.

I was getting a big dino outbreak on Friday, so I did a large water change on the system. I have been leaving the nitrates on the higher side since I wanted to start growing the cheato. That way It would be ready when I decided to add more fish. The water change has removed most of the dino's and I then reduced the photo period of the main DT lights down to 4 hours a day and I have no other algea in the tank, nothing green except for the bubble tip anemone lol.
On the light, I think you are correct in that the light might just be too far away from the cheato and it isn't receiving enough par. I was just thinking about the kessil because it has so much more par that it would penetrate the depth of the water?

I started off with a ball about the size of a tennis ball, maybe slightly smaller. Do you think I should try starting off with a larger size to give it a chance to absorb more nutrients? The size of the fuge is 36"W x 22"T x 4"D with the light mounted just under the surface of the water and the cheato at the bottom.

As far as the volume, do you think that increasing the flow through the fuge would help with exposing the cheato to a higher rate of nutrients? I have a sicce 251gph pump on there at the moment.

Thank you again for all the help! It helped a great deal. Looks like I have a lot of figuring out to do lol

 

[Cory]

Theres a few possibilities here.
-ultra low N/P
-your auto top of is right next to it
-iron is so low it dies
-not enough circulation

 

[Dr. Jim]

Hey, I had the same thing happen to my hang on fuge. Where my cheato turned white throughout the mass all at the same time. So would you suggest that it is too little light? I have around .25 nitrates, .3 phos and only an anemone with some fish in the tank at the moment. I have the tunze refugium light submerged. But it is a 10gal hang on fuge that I made, and the cheato is at the bottom so perhaps there is too much distance between the light and the cheato? I am thinking to buy the kessil H160 to increase the par output.

I have a HOB fuge on an 11 mo old tank. I tried chaeto 3 times and it died each time. Recently, I added a gallon of Miracle Mud and bought this light that someone on another thread raved about. It is very bright and red, unlike the white light that came with the fuge. I haven't had it long enough to say for sure it is good but so far it looks promising and for only $16, I thought it was worth it AND it can be configured as a strip light for a HOB.
I have found that ulva and a fern-like caulerpa is growing pretty well. There is only a tiny piece of chaeto left so I will see how it does with the new light:
Amazon.com: LED Grow Light, Aceple 2 Sizes Configurable 20W Ultra Thin Plant Growing Panel for Greenhouse Hydroponic Indoor Plants Veg Flower: Home Improvement

 

[blasterman]

I use a basic 20watt white shop light you can find on Amazon or at home depots for less than $20.

I use a spare 5gal tank as a fuge. I run the light two hours a day and filtered through a heavy diffuser because it was burning the tops of cheato. My cheato is dense green. Never dosed iron. It initially grew fast but has slowed down considerably as nitrate flat lined.

If you put cheato in total darkness it will die but very, very slowly and turn a mushy brown first, not white.

You either have too much light or something in the water killed it. These special grow lights are nonsense. All you need is white light .

 

[Rollman]

I Love my Tunze Submerisable, worth the extra cost of not have algae all over my sump from light spillage.

 

[jmichaelh7]

I Love my Tunze Submerisable, worth the extra cost of not have algae all over my sump from light spillage.

Have to look into this. I don’t want algae growing everywhere in my sump

 

[jmichaelh7]

What is the perfect phosphate spot for the refugium to be good?
Since I stopped the refugium In one day my sps and corals are looking So much better even extension, that even my wife noticed

 

[Dkmoo]

I think general consensus is around 0.01ppm to 0.05ppm for a healthy reef tank. Ur original post mentions 0.5 which looks odd if your corals are thriving. Is that right? At 0.5PPM phosphate and 10PPM nitrate you should have an algae explosion on your hand (or will have one shortly).

 

[jmichaelh7]

I’m using the API test and it’s 0.5ppm

 

[Heart of Dixie]

My chaeto grows very well under just plain 5 k spots from Home Depot. I have 2 mounted about 2 “ off the surface.

 

[Spare time]

I HIGHly recommend supplementing trace elements from something like chaetogro. I have found that chaeto eventually dies after doing well for a while if certain elemenets needed are not supplemented

 

[jmichaelh7]

Maybe look into that if I run a refugium again.