Chaeto not growing
- Thread starter noobreefer2
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Thespammailaccount
2500 Club Member
If it starts to turn white you need to toss it otherwise it will release the nutrients back into the tank
Dom
Full Time Reef Keeper
You can buy a simple 75W grow bulb from Home Depot along with a clamp on fixture and a timer. In my early days of reefing, I had good success with that.
I use the Kessil a80 in my refugium.
Understand that we grow Chaetomorpha (or some other macro algae) for nutrient export (removal of Nitrates and Phosphates).
If your Chaetomorpha isn't growing, it may just be that you don't have enough nutrients left to feed it.
I'm not saying it is incorrect to do, but I don't understand why people sometimes add nutrients to their tank just for the purpose of getting their Chaetomorpha to grow. It defeats why we have Chaeto in the first place.
I use the Kessil a80 in my refugium.
Understand that we grow Chaetomorpha (or some other macro algae) for nutrient export (removal of Nitrates and Phosphates).
If your Chaetomorpha isn't growing, it may just be that you don't have enough nutrients left to feed it.
I'm not saying it is incorrect to do, but I don't understand why people sometimes add nutrients to their tank just for the purpose of getting their Chaetomorpha to grow. It defeats why we have Chaeto in the first place.
I agree and if this is the case, the solution in my experience was to reduce the photoperiod. This helped tremendously to cut down on the slime green algae and other microalgae that infiltrated the chaeto. Then very slowly increase the photoperiod as nutrients build up and chaeto grows. I had to cut down from 16 hrs /day to 6 hrs. Now I'm slowly building back up as things mature.
Cheers,
FB
OP
OP
noobreefer2
Well-Known Member
Fuge setup. Flow not that fast through my sump. I rotate ‘flip’ my macro once a day. I dose trace elements as well macro likes iron. Zero phosphates might also be an issue
this morning I shook my macro in a bowl of tap water and the the water in the bowl turned brown. but it looked like I got most of the nuisance algae off. Now my chaeto is at the bottom of the fuge where the GHA and slime is, anything I should do?
P.S I use the salifert to test phos so its pretty hard to tell what level im at. i'm getting a hanna soon.
Thespammailaccount
2500 Club Member
I agree with @2Sunny I also think the tank may still be too young and still in the ugly phase and the macro could also be currently outcompeted for nutrients at the moment
Well I have one more suggestion but it's not going to be popular. In my old planted FW days we would often soak plants in bleach diluted to 10% to eradicate them of snail eggs we didn't want. I had to do that to my chaeto a few times as I built up the photoperiod. For me, it's in a Pellux Bellum Arid reactor. But I took bleach and diluted it 10% and cleaned out the reactor with it and rinsed it with fresh water. Then I soaked the chaeto for 1 - 2 minutes (2 tops) and quickly rinsed it in fresh water to get any residual bleach off. That killed the microalgae but the chaeto was OK. It's growing in the Arid reactor now and I'll do it again in a couple weeks.
Generally speaking, microalgae grows faster but chaeto is tougher. So if you use a minimal photoperiod, the microalgae will die first. If you use dilute bleach for a very short exposure, the microalgae will die first. If you get to a point where you want to throw the chaeto away, I would definitely experiment with the 1 minute of bleach at 10% trick.
Cheers,
FB
