Used Chaeto gro, tank got cloudy within an hour...bacterial bloom?

[Greenjeans]

My tank has only been running since Feb. I've had a fuge with chaeto the whole time, but the chaeto has never grown. Now with several fish and obvious growth on my tester corals, I'm confused why my chaeto continues to recede. I decided to try Brightwell's ChaetoGro product.

I added the recommended starter dose (~35ml for my 140g system) and within an hour or so my water got cloudy. My skimmer is pulling tons of skimmate with an unusual orange tint (the chaetoGro looks orange too).

This seems like a bacterial bloom, and it happened surprisingly quickly. Do I need to take action? Why would this have happened?

My best guess is that my tank has been chronically deficient on something this product provided, which allowed a waiting bacteria to explode...?

I'm running a skimmer and a large UV unit as well.

phosphates 0.06, nitrates 4-8ppm

 

[Flippers4pups]

I suspect your nutrients are too low or your refugium light is the wrong spectrum or intensity.

Not being able to grow chaetomorpa isn't a bad thing. Just means that you don't have excess nutrients.

The water turning cloudy is probably from the dosing. I'm not familiar with that product. If the water turned white, I'd say it's a bacterial bloom.

Let's see what others that have used this product say.

 

[Greenjeans]

I'm using a Kessil H80 fuge light, set to "grow" @ ~60%, running on a reverse photocycle from 11p-4a

I don't know about the other nutrients, but it's only since early May that I got phosphates below 0.2 (added gfo), and I've never seen my nitrates lower than 4-8.

I'm still pretty new, and I feel like I've been feeding heavy as well.

It's white-ish cloudiness and orange skimmate, so very likely a bacterial bloom

 

[Greenjeans]

16hrs later, the tank looks clear again!

 

[ReefKeeperElite]

16hrs later, the tank looks clear again!

Have you seen good growth over the past couple months since starting with Chaeto Gro and the H80?

 

[Arabyps]

I've seen a number of posts where people are not able to grow chaeto for one reason or another, or cannot figure out why. I too was unable to grow cheato (I had a light specifically for chaeto) and also added ChaetoGrow (it didn't cloud my water). I finally decided not to purchase anymore chaeto and instead go with an algae scrubber (Santa Monica Rain2) which has worked amazingly well. Grows GHA like a champ.

 

[ReefKeeperElite]

I've seen a number of posts where people are not able to grow chaeto for one reason or another, or cannot figure out why. I too was unable to grow cheato (I had a light specifically for chaeto) and also added ChaetoGrow (it didn't cloud my water). I finally decided not to purchase anymore chaeto and instead go with an algae scrubber (Santa Monica Rain2) which has worked amazingly well. Grows GHA like a champ.

That's the feeling I'm getting too. It seems like getting Chaeto to grow is a crap shot for most people. Chaeto Gro seemed to work for some, and not for others, so just wondering what the secret sauce is. Seems like in order for Chaeto to grow, moons have to align with respect to proper tumbling, spectrum, nutrients, and trace elements.

 

[JohnGP]

I've used the ChaetoGro product before and it didn't cloud my water, I also didn't see much improvement in Chaeto growth either. Adding some Iron however did make it take off, I used the Brightwell Ferrion product, it seems to work well. It didn't grow like wildfire but I did start to get some nice growth after using the Ferrion.

 

[ReefBeta]

That's the feeling I'm getting too. It seems like getting Chaeto to grow is a crap shot for most people. Chaeto Gro seemed to work for some, and not for others, so just wondering what the secret sauce is. Seems like in order for Chaeto to grow, moons have to align with respect to proper tumbling, spectrum, nutrients, and trace elements.

About 6 months ago I was also "battling" with chaeto to get it grow. Also tried ChaetoGro with not much improvement. But then I looked at the tank and thought, why do I bother with chaeto when the nutrients are already no and the tank is doing great with no algae whatsoever. So I decommissioned the refugium. Many months later, the tank is still doing great, and nutrients are still low.

So, your tank may not need an algae filter at all. BTW, chaeto don't really need tumbling or care much about spectrum. Many people including me grew chaeto with just white shop light.

 

[Greenjeans]

My chaeto continued to recede and so I stopped using the chaeto gro. The ball of chaeto is basically gone now and my tank nutrients are still just fine, no algae, so I'm not worried about it. I guess I don't really need algae filtration at the moment. I've turned off the fuge light altogether.

 

[ReefKeeperElite]

That's the feeling I'm getting too. It seems like getting Chaeto to grow is a crap shot for most people. Chaeto Gro seemed to work for some, and not for others, so just wondering what the secret sauce is. Seems like in order for Chaeto to grow, moons have to align with respect to proper tumbling, spectrum, nutrients, and trace elements.

Fast forward 9 months and my cheato has grown to fill my entire fuge. I stopped using cheato gro a few months ago, and despite that, the cheato just grew even faster. It had become so dense that it started to impede flow across to my skimmer section and back to the return section. So today I performed my first harvest, and good flow has returned. I made this a recurring monthly maintenance task. Nitrates are at 25, phosphates are at 0.2, so nutrients are improving, but I'm also dosing nopox as well (24ml per day), to keep nutrients stable along with very heavy feeding to keep the fish healthy.

First harvest:

After harvest, much less dense:

Used the harvest as fertilizer to help grass grow: