Help me figure out what I’m doing wrong growing chaeto

The_Skrimp · Nov 23, 2020

Hey folks,
I’ve been trying to start a refugium but I can’t keep chaeto alive. I was hoping someone could help me figure out what I’m doing wrong.

The tank is six months old and has quite a bit of hair algae growing in the display right now. I have to pull it from the rocks every week. My chaeto however won’t grow. Instead I get hair algae in the refugium and all over my chaeto as the chaeto slowly turns white and dissolves.

My nitrates are currently at 4 because I just did a water change but they usually get up to around 10 in between water changes. My phosphates are at 0.03

I don’t have a power head in the fuge so the only flow it’s getting is from the return pulling water through the sump.

I went with cheap Amazon grow lights. I currently have two Amazon “80 watt” LED clip on grow lights over it that are red/blue which I run at full power for 12 hours at night.

I can’t think of anything else I’m missing.
Any ideas?

reefinnewb · Nov 23, 2020

You might have the wrong spectrum of lights. I use a cheap LED 5100k bulb from home depot and have to thin it almost weekly.

Webslinger · Nov 23, 2020

low iron? keep the chaeto clean of hair algae. Tank is young, chaeto sometimes doesn't grow well till things stabilize.

drew'be · Dec 10, 2020

How close is the light to the surface of the water? I use a cheap led grow light that is only 19 watts clamped to the side of the sump only 5 or so inches from the water surface. Prior to that I had a much more powerful bulb that would seem to produce a lot of heat and I had the same thing with my Chaeto turning white and dying. I think its possible that the light is too bright/hot and its killing the chaeto.

Crustaceon · Dec 10, 2020

The_Skrimp said:
Hey folks,
I’ve been trying to start a refugium but I can’t keep chaeto alive. I was hoping someone could help me figure out what I’m doing wrong.

The tank is six months old and has quite a bit of hair algae growing in the display right now. I have to pull it from the rocks every week. My chaeto however won’t grow. Instead I get hair algae in the refugium and all over my chaeto as the chaeto slowly turns white and dissolves.

My nitrates are currently at 4 because I just did a water change but they usually get up to around 10 in between water changes. My phosphates are at 0.03

I don’t have a power head in the fuge so the only flow it’s getting is from the return pulling water through the sump.

I went with cheap Amazon grow lights. I currently have two Amazon “80 watt” LED clip on grow lights over it that are red/blue which I run at full power for 12 hours at night.

I can’t think of anything else I’m missing.
Any ideas?

It’s because your phosphates are really low when they actually show up on the tester. That’s probably only happening because hair algae is stealing the available Po4, which causes the chaeto to starve, which releases Po4, which gives you a Po4 reading, which in turn feeds the hair algae. This is why you don’t use a refugium to fight hair algae. Hair algae will almost always win that battle. The key here is making the environment inhospitable for hair algae. That typically involves ruthless and constant manual removal combined with your rocks growing a different, more visually appealing algae (typically coralline), preventing GHA from being able to take root. Once this happens, chaeto has a much easier time controlling your nutrient levels as it doesn’t have to compete with another much more efficient type of algae.

The_Skrimp · Dec 12, 2020

Thanks for the advice folks.
So far I’ve pulled as much hair algae as I can manually and I’m going to try to continue doing that at least once or twice a week. I’ve also started dosing chaeto gro which adds iron and other elements to help the chaeto grow and I picked up a new light. I’m crossing my fingers this batch takes off.