Chaeto not growing

jrp1588 · Mar 27, 2018

I got some chaeto about 3 weeks ago, and I don't believe it's growing or doing much of anything. I have it under a 20watt red LED grow light, and I have more than enough nutrients at around 20 nitrate and .2 phosphate. It's on a reverse light cycle and gets about 12 hours a day. I'm not tumbling it, but neither did the guy I got it from.

The guy I got it from had these under a full spectrum chinese black box LED. Does chaeto prefer full spectrum? It's also worth noting that it seems to be getting covered in micro bubbles from my skimmer. Could that be upsetting the chaeto? I've got cyano in my display, so I'd really like to get this stuff kicking butt to out compete it.

nautical_nathaniel · Mar 27, 2018

#reefsquad, any thoughts on what may be happening here?

chipmunkofdoom2 · Mar 27, 2018

jrp1588 said:
I've got cyano in my display, so I'd really like to get this stuff kicking butt to out compete it.

Although it's far from a rule, in general, cyanobacteria means excess phosphates. Chaeto needs both nitrates and phosphates to grow. It's possible your system is nitrate-deficient. Do you know your nitrate and phosphate levels?

jrp1588 · Mar 27, 2018

chipmunkofdoom2 said:
Although it's far from a rule, in general, cyanobacteria means excess phosphates. Chaeto needs both nitrates and phosphates to grow. It's possible your system is nitrate-deficient. Do you know your nitrate and phosphate levels?

Refer back to the OP, nitrate is ~20 and phosphate is around .2 as of Sunday. Tested using a nyos nitrate kit and a Hanna Phosphate checker.

Lasse · Mar 27, 2018

Probably 20 Watts is to low intensity. I run my fuge - area 16*90 cm and a depth of 25 cm (6.3"*35.4"*9.8") - with around 50 W insert power. No tumbling and only light from the top.
At the moment I use mostly 630, 660, a few 450 and one white 20 000K multichip. A full spectrum is not a bad chose but there should be a lot of red IMO

Sincerely Lasse

jrp1588 · Mar 27, 2018

Don't people grow these things with cheap LED spotlights from the hardware store? I was under the impression it didn't really take much. I remember 10 years ago, people were growing it with spiral CFL bulbs.

Lasse · Mar 27, 2018

There is growth and there is growth

Sincerely Lasse

lbacha · Mar 27, 2018

Lasse said:
There is growth and there is growth

Sincerely Lasse

Any wattage will grow cheato but higher wattage will grow it faster if there is enough nutrients in the tank. I have low bioload so a Kessil h80 works for my in my 12"x12"x9" fuge.

As to the micobubbles my cheato is in the same chamber as my overflow pipe so lots of bubbles and it grows fine. I actually like it this way as the cheato can use up the CO2 that is added via the overflow before it makes it to the main tank. My ph stays at around 8.3 when the fuge light is on so it seems to work

jrp1588 · Mar 27, 2018

Frankly I've never had any luck with chaeto. I had a pretty good caulerpa fuge years ago, but any time I've tried chaeto in any system it just sort of sits there.

Terry Brown · Mar 27, 2018

I keep my fuge light on 24 hours a day. And I have micro bubbles in the Cheato from my skimmer. Nitrates stay around .25 and phosphates are undetectable using a Salifert test kit. My growth has been great.

For me the lighting was the key.

I was using a cheap chinese black box that was a 25 watt led and got good results.
I switched to a 150 watt led recently. Getting awesome growth now. So much I fish out softball size every week and throw it in the garden.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/150W-UFO-L...180272&hash=item1a2118bb36:g:y~AAAOSwo4pYQnbZ

jrp1588 · Mar 27, 2018

Hmm, well the price is right. I think I'll let it run as is a couple more weeks. If it still isn't doing anything, I'll look at lighting options.

lake985 · Mar 27, 2018

I've also had difficulty growing chaeto with lower watt (~20w) lighting and have recently switched to a 50w LED grow light and my chaeto and ulva has taken off.
Here's a link to the specific light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0748J5Y1F/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

jrp1588 · Mar 27, 2018

Now I'm seeing a little bit of cyano growing on the chaeto itself. Guess I'll have to start making sure it doesn't progress enough to choke it out. It's always the dang slime algaes that get me. I'll take this over dinoflagellates any day though.

TRock · Mar 30, 2018

Take a sample and send away for icp-oes tests. You could have some element in there keeping chaeto from growing.

Alternatively, do a very large water change (50 percent) using saltwater made from a source of water known to be good with zero TDS.

jrp1588 · Mar 30, 2018

I've been considering doing that anyway. My SPS are doing poorly, but I attributed that to Alk climbing to 10.2 while I was sick and unable to do much more than throw food into the tank for a couple weeks. I've had things balanced properly and stable for a few weeks now, but things don't seem to be improving, and I've actually lost a decent sized colony of pocillopora, and several of my monti colonies are struggling. Ironically my big acro colonies are mostly fine, but my millies seem to be losing their tip flesh. My LPS are great, the the zoas are invasive as always. I've been blaming it on the cyano kicking these corals while they were weak from the alk spike, but I would have expected some improvement by now.

I'll pick up an ATI ICP test tomorrow and change about 50 gallons in my 125.

TRock · Mar 30, 2018

jrp1588 said:
I've been considering doing that anyway. My SPS are doing poorly, but I attributed that to Alk climbing to 10.2 while I was sick and unable to do much more than throw food into the tank for a couple weeks. I've had things balanced properly and stable for a few weeks now, but things don't seem to be improving, and I've actually lost a decent sized colony of pocillopora, and several of my monti colonies are struggling. Ironically my big acro colonies are mostly fine, but my millies seem to be losing their tip flesh. My LPS are great, the the zoas are invasive as always. I've been blaming it on the cyano kicking these corals while they were weak from the alk spike, but I would have expected some improvement by now.

I'll pick up an ATI ICP test tomorrow and change about 50 gallons in my 125.

Nice, I'm sure it doesn't need to be mentioned, but make sure you drop that alkalinity slowly. Sudden drop is almost as bad as a sudden increase.

Psustein · Mar 30, 2018

I bought a kessil h380 to grow out chaeto and phosphates, no phosphates nitrates, no nitrates this light will grow chaeto. It has the perfect spectrum to grow chaeto. Though expensive you can't stop the growth.

jrp1588 · Mar 30, 2018

Yeah, see, I know that...I really know better, but in my infinite wisdom, I just turned off my 2 part doser and figured letting it drop over the course of a week to ~8 would be gradual enough. It wasn't, that's when things really got bad.

TRock · Mar 30, 2018

jrp1588 said:
Yeah, see, I know that...I really know better, but in my infinite wisdom, I just turned off my 2 part doser and figured letting it drop over the course of a week to ~8 would be gradual enough. It wasn't, that's when things really got bad.

Really? Maybe seems a little fast, but I would assume that wouldn't be too quickly

jrp1588 · Mar 30, 2018

Sure seemed to be when things went bad. FWIW, this nutrient uptick happened around the same time as well. My system has always naturally run extremely low on phosphate and around 10 nitrate. Something changed, and now my phosphate is .2 and ~20 nitrate. I've got a ginormous derasa clam in the tank, maybe it stopped consuming so many nutrients when the alk got out of balance?

I dunno, I've been at this for years. I try to do the right things, but I can't ever seem to get my tank the way I want it consistently. Seems like all most people have to do is keep their alk relatively stable, and their tank thrives. My tanks have always had long periods of decent growth, but subpar color punctuated by large dieoffs and cyano and/or dino.