HOB refugium issues

OCD420 · Apr 17, 2018

I wanted to add a HOB refugium to my system to balance my PH, grow chaeto, and create a haven for pods. I was able to get the HOB, pump, LED, 2 cups of chaeto, and the pods for $115.00.
I’ve done my best to set this up but things are not going well. First problem was the flow, I added half of the bottle of pods and left the pump off for 30minutes. When I kicked it back on I could just see them swimming out into my display... I put floss around the intake to slow it down but it started to slow more and more as time went on. Tried to put a screen on the out flow but it caused the HOB to overflow elsewhere. I ended up stacking some chunks or rock in front of the outflow, hopefully they’ll grab on as the current sweeps them past. The only other thing I can think of is to get a rheostat for the pump... any other suggestions?

Next we have the light splash. HOB is clear and acts as a large fiber optic. The back of my display is painted black so that helps, I made a case for it out of some rigid black foam.

Took this picture this morning, will that amount of light during the night cycle hurt my corals/slow growth or is it on par with moonlight?

Last is the chaeto, it didn’t show up in the best shape but now one compartment is turning brown on top and the other clear/white.... they are running 12hrs and temp is a constant 79 degrees.

I covered the front 1/4 of the lid with black gorilla tape and dosed the chaeto with phytofeast and let it sit 30minutes without the pump yesterday... didn’t look any better today so I fed my chaeto some of my clownfish pellets.

Thoughts on this? I’m stopping at a LFS today to see if I can get some caulerpa... maybe that will do better... so far this has not been money/time well spent.

lion king · Apr 17, 2018

1st the goal is to control excessive nutrients and give a home for pods. Once you've turned the pumps off and allowed your pods to grab on, your work is done and you just have to let nature take it's course. What is your NO3 and PO4, if minimal then you are going to get minimal growth of your chaeto; and minimal nutrients is the goal, not chaeto growth. You could continue the black out of the refugium by painting or more gorillka tape(love gorilla tape), although I doubt the light bleed will cause any problems to your display. I like caulerpa so adding some would not be bad. Tweeking the flow rate and lighting schedule is part of the process to get it tuned into your system, it takes a little time.

OCD420 · Apr 17, 2018

Ha, I know, I kinda made it a goal though when I threw money into this bright idea. I feed every other day, WC 20% weekly, and replace all media bi-weekly... so my levels are as close to zero as it gets in a 6month old setup. I do get some GHA here and there so I thought this would eliminate that and eventually allow me to cut back the water changes to bi-weekly.
I just don’t get why it’s dying... according to the reviews I should have had to pull a handful out by now,lol. I think I’m going to just run the light when my display is on just to be safe... if the chaeto is dying then no photosynthesis is happening anyway. Thanks LK

lion king · Apr 17, 2018

OCD420 said:
Ha, I know, I kinda made it a goal though when I threw money into this bright idea. I feed every other day, WC 20% weekly, and replace all media bi-weekly... so my levels are as close to zero as it gets in a 6month old setup. I do get some GHA here and there so I thought this would eliminate that and eventually allow me to cut back the water changes to bi-weekly.
I just don’t get why it’s dying... according to the reviews I should have had to pull a handful out by now,lol. I think I’m going to just run the light when my display is on just to be safe... if the chaeto is dying then no photosynthesis is happening anyway. Thanks LK

Sounds a little like you might be over doing it; believe it or not, over filtration can also be a negative. If your chaeto comes from a good source then it's likely you don't have enough nutrients to keep it alive. Chaeto also comes from fresh water sources that do not survive in our tanks for very long.

For a reef, an opposite light cycle would be best, cut it back to 8 hrs or even less on the lighting. I've found that macro also like slower flow, I run mine less than 300gph. If nitrates are less than 10 than there's no point in macro. My tanks run 10-15 with po4 close to zero, I harvest 1/2 my macro once a month. I forget about water changes all together on my fowlr tanks.

OCD420 · Apr 18, 2018

lion king said:
Sounds a little like you might be over doing it; believe it or not, over filtration can also be a negative. If your chaeto comes from a good source then it's likely you don't have enough nutrients to keep it alive. Chaeto also comes from fresh water sources that do not survive in our tanks for very long.

For a reef, an opposite light cycle would be best, cut it back to 8 hrs or even less on the lighting. I've found that macro also like slower flow, I run mine less than 300gph. If nitrates are less than 10 than there's no point in macro. My tanks run 10-15 with po4 close to zero, I harvest 1/2 my macro once a month. I forget about water changes all together on my fowlr tanks.

Thanks
Cut it to 6hrs, might be too late though...

Looks more like the light is killing it VS the lack of nutrients... IDK