Help, super high phosphates!

[g8rorchid]

I would love to be able to use chaeto. I have tried many times, with different types of lighting and it would never grow. I tried with a cfl from home depot, power compacts, and leds. I tried with my sump and in my hang on back fuge. I always had plenty of nitrates, so lack of nutrients was not it. After talking with someone recently, I think the issue was not enough flow. The chaeto never tumbled.

 

[ReefHomieJon]

I would love to be able to use chaeto. I have tried many times, with different types of lighting and it would never grow. I tried with a cfl from home depot, power compacts, and leds. I tried with my sump and in my hang on back fuge. I always had plenty of nitrates, so lack of nutrients was not it. After talking with someone recently, I think the issue was not enough flow. The chaeto never tumbled.

Mine doesn’t tumble but still grows great, although I been really thinking about adding a small power head in there to see if it would help in any way(how tho when I seem to need to feed more or dose at this point smh). The light I have on mine was $100 from the LFS and works great. The big companies are coming out with waaaaay too overpriced refugium lights now. But if I was just starting out again and didn’t have experience with my current light I would have probably gotten one. They have pink spectrum now I believe, mine is just white and blue.....

 

[Cory]

I would love to be able to use chaeto. I have tried many times, with different types of lighting and it would never grow. I tried with a cfl from home depot, power compacts, and leds. I tried with my sump and in my hang on back fuge. I always had plenty of nitrates, so lack of nutrients was not it. After talking with someone recently, I think the issue was not enough flow. The chaeto never tumbled.

Add iron and or po4 it will grow and reduce nutrients. Red leds are better than white ime.

 

[Jimmyneptune]

I would love to be able to use chaeto. I have tried many times, with different types of lighting and it would never grow. I tried with a cfl from home depot, power compacts, and leds. I tried with my sump and in my hang on back fuge. I always had plenty of nitrates, so lack of nutrients was not it. After talking with someone recently, I think the issue was not enough flow. The chaeto never tumbled.

How are things going with the NO3 and PO4? I have similar problems.

 

[zoomonster]

Same... never had a problem growing chaeto in my sump, where it does not tumble, with a single Philips 6500k CFL bulb (Lowes or HD) in a gooseneck. If anything the chaeto was a solid mass filling the whole area of sump. 6500K bulb works best IMO and other spectrums maybe not so much.

And yeah even w/o a reactor just some GFO in a filter bag will work ok.

 

[Jimmyneptune]

Same... never had a problem growing chaeto in my sump, where it does not tumble, with a single Philips 6500k CFL bulb (Lowes or HD) in a gooseneck. If anything the chaeto was a solid mass filling the whole area of sump. 6500K bulb works best IMO and other spectrums maybe not so much.

And yeah even w/o a reactor just some GFO in a filter bag will work ok.

My Chaetomorpha use to grow like a weed I could regularly pull 2 gallon buckets out. Now it mostly just dies. Just cleaned up my sump and the chaeto and now I have softball size of chaeto.

 

[zoomonster]

Well I have had chaeto and other types suddenly die off too and you need to remove it at the first sign of that.
The tank always had a high bio load so no lack of nutrients to feed it. I forget but I think one of the red sea additives I was using contained iron.

As far as lights... leave it to pet vendors/manufacturers to come up with grossly over priced/kill specialty lights. In reality all you need is a $10 gooseneck light fixture and
Lights
Mine ran over night controlled by apex. Main lights off then these were on. That also lends itself to stabilizing PH.

Amazon is out but you can usually find them at Lowes/HD in 2 packs. Of course I was using it on the center section of a 40g sump. Bigger full blown fuge then yeah maybe something bigger. Plus sure if you want to run something more environmentally friendly and more aesthetic then by all means go out and buy a $300+ LED fuge light.