Success with Chaeto and GFO?

[TunaC]

I know, I know, phosphate troubles AGAIN.
Thanks for reading this, will give as much detail as possible.

90 gallon, 1 year old tank with 8 fish and growing a variety of acros, montis, euphilia, chalices.
This is my first reef tank, lots of issues in the first few months, but now I do feel like I am having success with corals and fish and mostly enjoying things. I started this tank trying to follow the Triton method.

Sump is a 34g with ~10-12 g set aside for Chaeto. No filter socks (occasionally will run one). Skimmer. Some extra biomedia in the sump.
Nitrates are great, usually in 5-10 range. (All other parameters are fine, I send out ICPs periodically to Triton and replenish as needed). Ca and Alk are 2 part on dosing pumps and from what I see are very stable.

A few months back I attempted to run GFO for phos control. Brought the phos down perfectly but basically wiped out my Chaeto.
Since then I started dosing trace elements daily (per Triton recommendations) + Iron which I found was necessary for the Chaeto.
I feed about 2 frozen Mysis cubes per day (sometimes I will rely on an auto feeder when out of town etc, but volume of food is similar).
I have rarely been doing water changes. Aside from the phos levels going up, I notice no difference.

More recently I have been relying on lanthanum chloride for Phos control. Works well, but I'm still running a little on the high side and this compound is somewhat of a PITA as I am nervous about dosing a lot of the stuff at once so end up tinkering with my phos levels on a multiple times a week basis. Too much maintenance!

My phos levels are 0.15 - 0.4 but that is with pretty active management with the lanthanum chloride. The level would just continue to skyrocket if I didn't stay on it. (was as high as 0.9 several months ago when I wasn't being a "good reefer.")

I have read that GFO and macro algae can be tricky together. Last time I tried, it failed. At that time, however, I was not dosing daily trace elements and I was not dosing Iron. I'm considering trying the combination together again, but hoping some sage individuals can tell me if that is / is not a good plan.

Who has had success with GFO and Chaeto? What did you do to pull this off?

I do not want to give up on the refugium. The amount of life in there is spectaular. BUT I gotta find a better means of keeping my phosphate down. Thanks you (very much) for reading and any advice you have.

 

[goosemans]

What light were you using to grow the chaeto? I’ve been using this light for over for about a year and half and it’s done a great job.

Amazon.com

At first I was using brightwells chaetogrow and that seemed to help it take off, but after about 4 months I stopped using it to see what happened. Nothing changed so I don’t use it anymore. Doesn’t hurt to try though. Also another thought. What foods do you feed?

 

[Koty]

I occasionally run GFO as my phosphates are high even with my fast growing cheato.

 

[bobnicaragua]

My refugium does a good job keeping my nitrates down but my phosphates will just keep rising. I keep 2 bags of GFO mixed with carbon in the sump and change one bag out every 2 weeks. I also dose trace elements.

Phosphates are usually below .1

 

[TunaC]

What light were you using to grow the chaeto? I’ve been using this light for over for about a year and half and it’s done a great job.

Amazon.com

At first I was using brightwells chaetogrow and that seemed to help it take off, but after about 4 months I stopped using it to see what happened. Nothing changed so I don’t use it anymore. Doesn’t hurt to try though. Also another thought. What foods do you feed?

I have a Kessil refuge light, probably overkill but it’s definitely not a light situation lol. Food is usually frozen mysis. I was using some chaetogro on top of the trace elements but a couple got too high / out of whack so I stopped the chaetogro and haven’t had issues (with the chaeto). Thanks !

 

[Jono667]

I have a 150 g display and 40g 4 chamber sump. My chaeto lives in the 3rd chamber and is lit by a cheap 20w grow light (red and blue led) for 10 hrs a night, 8pm to 6am. I use hanna ulr phosphorus checker which read about 130 ppb, converting to a about 0.4 ppm po4 at the start. Added 2, 1 gal zip lock full of chaeto and P got down to 15 ppb in about 3 weeks, which is right about 0.04 po4 running the light for 12 hrs. I pulled out a handful of chaeto and reduced light by 2hrs and test once a month. Display algae is minimal which get sorted by urchin and snails and p tests between 15 and 17 ppb. Not sure how helpful this is but chaeto certainly worked for me....tempting fate now.

 

[Faurek]

Two things here, first do your corals complain when your phos is at .4? You don't really need to lower if the corals are happy.
Second is if you used gfo and chaeto died is because it stripped the water, I do think it's good to filter the water with macros not only for no3 and po4 but other stuff. I would run the macro only, your SPS could have reacted poorly and start stripping flesh because of the gfo.