Chaeto not growing - am I missing something?

[ca1ore]

Forgive the play on words in the title - the chaeto in my refugium hasn’t been growing much since my most recent tank upgrade. Even though I run a large skimmer and ATS, I’ve always needed chaeto as well to keep N and P at low levels because I have a very high fish load. Tank is certainly not macro nutrient limited; in fact since experiencing issues with the refugium nitrates are about 15 and phosphate 0.15. Corals do not appear overly affected, at least not yet. I’ve always had to dose iron to get good chaeto growth, and a recent Triton test came back with Fe at zero, so I am goosing the iron dosing a bit.

Anyone with any alternative ideas of why my chaeto is moribund? What am I missing; what’s it missing?

 

[scuzy]

Could you be low in iron?

 

[sghera64]

Is the current low growth rate a new condition in contrast to a previous time, maybe, when the chaeto was growing more rapidly?


When I started growing macro (Ulva and Chaeto), they both few for a few weeks, then turned to mush, or lost color and stopped. I started dosing Kent’s Fe with Mn. They bounced back over time. Now, I dose I2, Fe, Mo and Mn.

 

[ca1ore]

Could you be low in iron?

That is what I think, yes. I kept the same dosing amount when I moved from 265 to 450 because I figured the consumption would not change, but that was likely a flawed assumption.

 

[reefdude101]

Chaeto is very finnicky man, no matter how i tried to do it i could never get chaeto to grow properly and do what so many reefers said it did properly in any of my systems.
i tried it in sump with kessil fuge light i tried it in a 400 dollar chaeto reactor .. i tried dosing iron nothing made this stuff do what it was meant to do.

so i went back to what has always done me well when sized right an ATS while slow to seed and get going in the end they are awesome as they allow for fat happy fish & healthy corals without the hassles of gfo & all that carbon dosing/chaeto rubbish.

bigger scrubber is a must.

 

[ZaneTer]

The best results I ever had with chaeto was when I dosed iron and had it under a cheap amazon horticulture led. I ran into the problem of it stripping the water column of nutrients too aggressively.

 

[theMeat]

Forgive the play on words in the title - the chaeto in my refugium hasn’t been growing much since my most recent tank upgrade. Even though I run a large skimmer and ATS, I’ve always needed chaeto as well to keep N and P at low levels because I have a very high fish load. Tank is certainly not macro nutrient limited; in fact since experiencing issues with the refugium nitrates are about 15 and phosphate 0.15. Corals do not appear overly affected, at least not yet. I’ve always had to dose iron to get good chaeto growth, and a recent Triton test came back with Fe at zero, so I am goosing the iron dosing a bit.

Anyone with any alternative ideas of why my chaeto is moribund? What am I missing; what’s it missing?

Weird
Wonder if ats consumes more iron than fuge? The reason I ask is because I did the opposite. Have big fuge, slightly undersized skimmer. A coupla 4 months into new 300 gal system put ats online. Within 2-3 months took it back off line because n and p were getting too low. N more than p. Since then the fuge and skimmer have kept me from a water change going on 4 years now. Have not noticed a drop on iron, although I have not tested, see no signs. What I do notice is a lot of magnesium gets consumed by macro

 

[ca1ore]

It’s really odd. I’ve been running the same ATS for almost 5 years. On my prior tank, up until last Fall, chaeto grew like a weed along with the scrubber. On the current tank, it just sits there. Doesn’t die, but doesn’t grow much either even though macro nutrients on this tank are higher than on the prior (mostly due to a lack of fish self control). ATS grows fine, it’s just not big enough. I’ve tried boosting the iron dosing, and that’s helped a bit. I’m building a bigger ATS, which will probably just exacerbate the chaeto issues LOL. Hobby wouldn’t be any fun if everything went well, all the time.

I did recently have a Triton water test done and Fe was zero (or unmeasurable, prob not actually zero otherwise corals would be complaining). I’m always reluctant to dose too much, but maybe I need to boost it even further.

 

[Reefin Dude]

that is a good thing. if it is growing that means it has the resources to grow. give it time. as the tank gets more eutrophic it will start to grow.

i for one find that if i can grow Cheato or any algae that is a bad thing when i am running a reef top biotope.

G~

 

[sixty_reefer]

What was your iodine level on the icp?