Cheeto dying while nutrient levels increasing.

[TheKyle]

Got the H380. Been running it since tank start. Have it 12” above water. Bought new chaeto from Algae Barn and it began to rot almost immediately. They said my nitrates need to be 1-5 and phosphates .08 for chaeto to thrive. I wouldn’t be here if my water was like that. The chaeto they sold me must just not be hungry.

I dont thing too much nutrients will kill cheato, although I could be wrong. My nitrates got as high as 80+ and my cheato was fine.

 

[Pete1968]

Got the H380. Been running it since tank start. Have it 12” above water. Bought new chaeto from Algae Barn and it began to rot almost immediately. They said my nitrates need to be 1-5 and phosphates .08 for chaeto to thrive. I wouldn’t be here if my water was like that. The chaeto they sold me must just not be hungry.

If the cheato you got was rotting right away, you got bad cheato, the light looks alittle low, if its like 10 to 12 inches your good togo, you need to try some fresh cheato, if you lived around here I would give you all you could ever need

 

[Pete1968]

The cheato loves nutrients, it should of thrived on it bigtime

 

[Lousybreed]

I by no means am a master at refugiums but from my understanding, you should have a lower flow rate through the refugium. This gives the water column moving through it more time to interact with everything in the refugium such as Chaeto in your situation. If you have a high flow rate going through yours, all the nutrients you want to export via the Chaeto will just blow by it. If your refugium is part of your main sump, that is hard to control, if you can isolate it, try to get your flow rate down and see if you have an improvement.

I dont want to get in a debate but your statement isnt true. The fast flow will reduce the "boundary layer" effect and actually allow the algea to get access to the nutrients in the tank. Slow laminar flow would actually inhibit nutrient uptake. I mean sure 1200gpm in a 10 gallon fuge would be too much. I have actually added some cheap wavemakers to my fuge and the growth took off even more.

 

[Pete1968]

Agreed! My flow is a pretty fast in my sump as with all of the sumps ive own in the last 30 plus years in the hobby and ive never had a problem, as a matter if fact anytime i had slower flow in my sumps i not only got detritus but my sump looked like a swamp and wasn’t efficient at all, I believe a medium to higher flow is better than a slow flow i think if you watch the brs video you’ll find the same opinion

 

[Merv49]

I dont thing too much nutrients will kill cheato, although I could be wrong. My nitrates got as high as 80+ and my cheato was fine.

Just what I thought. The chaeto I got was silky smooth and straight grained. They haven’t answered my questions about the quality of the stuff or any mention of a refund or replacement.

 

[Merv49]

If the cheato you got was rotting right away, you got bad cheato, the light looks alittle low, if its like 10 to 12 inches your good togo, you need to try some fresh cheato, if you lived around here I would give you all you could ever need

The light is 12 inches above and I still have a little chaeto in the sump that was there before I got the apparently bad stuff

 

[Pete1968]

Just what I thought. The chaeto I got was silky smooth and straight grained. They haven’t answered my questions about the quality of the stuff or any mention of a refund or replacement.

As far as flow goes , alot of guys including brs likes to have there cheato tumble in the sump, which would require a high flow to achieve that,my cheato grows so fast its just not possible, u need to find a fellow reefer who will give you some from his tank, if you cannot find anyone let me know , if you pay for the shipping i will send u some for free

 

[Gareth elliott]

Have you tried a different algae? Some that dont have luck with chaeto have it with other species.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

i guarantee there is something wrong with your light.. i was using leds and it was burning them

 

[Merv49]

i guarantee there is something wrong with your light.. i was using leds and it was burning them

When I first got the H380 I tried running it 24 hours and the chaeto was turning white. I learned it couldn’ Take that much light and switched to an 11 hour schedule. Been growing chaeto every since but twice before all my chaeto rotted/melted and had to be replaced. No explanation for it, just is.

 

[Gareth elliott]

Try an acclimation period like you would corals. When plants and algae grow the amount of chloroplasts is based on the light present. They need time to grow new tissue with the appropriate amount of chloroplasts present. Aquatic plants this is easier to tell, they grow new leaves, that you can readily witness.

Try a drastically reduced photoperiod and slowly increasing. If using what has already starting melting, try trimming the top layers and leaving the center mass, in a 1996 study this area showed the highest chloroplast density.

 

[Merv49]

I will give that approach a try.

 

[rosshamsandwich]

I went back to Lowes Spiral Compact Fluorescent bulb with daylight and no more melting issues with Chaeto

 

[rosshamsandwich]

btw i run my chaeto refugium 24/7

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Your flow may be impacting the ability for the Chaeto to absorb the nutrients it needs to grow. Too much flow and everyhting will just pass by it. You may want to play around with that, if possible, and attempt to lower the flow in that area/chamber.

I agree that too high of flow might damage chaeto somehow, but it isn’t because the nutrients are passing by too fast for the chaeto to take them up. On a microscopic level there is virtually no flow right near the chaeto/water interface, but even if there was, sideways flow won’t make the ions in the water harder to take up.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, chaeto can be dead for a long time before you notice it isn’t growing. Say, for example, it got too cold in shipping. It might already be dead while looking normal. So aquarists might have to look further back into past events to see what might have happened (starvation, chemical treatments, etc.)

 

[Reefin Dude]

are you still C dosing?

it could be that the bacteria are stripping the P out of the water column and not leaving anything for the Chaeto.

G~

 

[Merv49]

My nitrates are 12 and the only thing I'm dosing is what the zeovit system calls for. Zeoback, Zeostart. Last phosphate test .35

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, I do not know if it is the issue or not, but chaeto needs a lot more than N and P. Lots of different trace elements, for example.