A little back story first, so that you see why I'm correlating my recent success with sea lettuce. But if you want, you can skip to the end!
I had been battling a diatom outbreak that I couldn't beat. It's a long story, but let's just say it had been going on for about 5 months and killed a bunch of my coral. No matter what I did, nothing impacted the diatom outbreak. I was at a point where I was cleaning the sand 3-4 times a week. It was becoming depressing. I put tons and tons of work into this and nothing made a difference.
While this had been going on I was also trying to grow chaeto in my refugium on 3 separate occasions. The first time the chaeto died in 2 weeks. It turned transparent and eventually started to get brown so I threw it out. After doing some research I decided the refugium light I had was bad at growing algae. When I saw it go on sale I bought the Kessil H380 Halo II. I figured if it didn't grow this time, then it couldn't possibly be the light source
So, I tried chaeto again. I guess the kessil worked too well because the refugium filled up with hair algae faster than I could take it out. The chaeto became slimy and basically choked out from the hair algae and died again! So, for the next month of so, I played a game of cleaning the hair algae from the refugium.
When another month passed of no noticeable hair algae in the refugium (but the diatoms were still killing me in the display tank) I decided to try and grow chaeto again, but this time I added sea lettuce too. In two weeks, half the chaeto died (became slimy and brown and decreased greatly in size), but the sea lettuce expanded like crazy. I didn't measure it the first time, but I would say it increased 5-10 times in size. I removed the dead chaeto and all the extra sea lettuce. I also noticed that the diatom outbreak was stopping. I don't know if it was coincidental timing or the sea lettuce, but the sea lettuce was the only thing new I did to the tank. Two more weeks passed and the sea lettuce grew by 12 times in size and the diatoms have completely stopped. It's amazing, I spent months and months cleaning and fighting them and growing sea lettuce was the only thing that helped! As a side note, the chaeto isn't dead but it hasn't grown
TL/DR;
- After 5 months of fighting diatoms, 2 weeks of sea lettuce nearly eliminated them, and after 4 weeks I see no diatoms anymore
- Sea lettuce is growing 10x it's size in 2 weeks with the Kessil H380 Halo II
- Chaeto just continues to die on me
Questions:
- What would make sea lettuce thrive and chaeto die?
- Anyone else have success in eliminating diatoms with sea lettuce?
- Is it all coincidence and the sea lettuce did nothing?
I had been battling a diatom outbreak that I couldn't beat. It's a long story, but let's just say it had been going on for about 5 months and killed a bunch of my coral. No matter what I did, nothing impacted the diatom outbreak. I was at a point where I was cleaning the sand 3-4 times a week. It was becoming depressing. I put tons and tons of work into this and nothing made a difference.
While this had been going on I was also trying to grow chaeto in my refugium on 3 separate occasions. The first time the chaeto died in 2 weeks. It turned transparent and eventually started to get brown so I threw it out. After doing some research I decided the refugium light I had was bad at growing algae. When I saw it go on sale I bought the Kessil H380 Halo II. I figured if it didn't grow this time, then it couldn't possibly be the light source
So, I tried chaeto again. I guess the kessil worked too well because the refugium filled up with hair algae faster than I could take it out. The chaeto became slimy and basically choked out from the hair algae and died again! So, for the next month of so, I played a game of cleaning the hair algae from the refugium. When another month passed of no noticeable hair algae in the refugium (but the diatoms were still killing me in the display tank) I decided to try and grow chaeto again, but this time I added sea lettuce too. In two weeks, half the chaeto died (became slimy and brown and decreased greatly in size), but the sea lettuce expanded like crazy. I didn't measure it the first time, but I would say it increased 5-10 times in size. I removed the dead chaeto and all the extra sea lettuce. I also noticed that the diatom outbreak was stopping. I don't know if it was coincidental timing or the sea lettuce, but the sea lettuce was the only thing new I did to the tank. Two more weeks passed and the sea lettuce grew by 12 times in size and the diatoms have completely stopped. It's amazing, I spent months and months cleaning and fighting them and growing sea lettuce was the only thing that helped! As a side note, the chaeto isn't dead but it hasn't grown
TL/DR;
- After 5 months of fighting diatoms, 2 weeks of sea lettuce nearly eliminated them, and after 4 weeks I see no diatoms anymore
- Sea lettuce is growing 10x it's size in 2 weeks with the Kessil H380 Halo II
- Chaeto just continues to die on me
Questions:
- What would make sea lettuce thrive and chaeto die?
- Anyone else have success in eliminating diatoms with sea lettuce?
- Is it all coincidence and the sea lettuce did nothing?
