My Cheato is turning brown and not growing

[MrZ3no]

So I been fighting with high nutrient in my tank for couple months now. I’ve added 2oz Chaeto before but green hair algae killed it in my Refugium. But I’ve decided to try one more time with better light(tunze purple light) and 4oz of chaeto this time, it’s been about 2 weeks now and it’s starting to turn brown and I’m not seeing much growth, if anything it looks like it’s shrinking. My nitrate is like 80 and phos around .71… so shouldn’t chaeto be growing like crazy? I’m running the light for 8 and half hours after my tank light goes off. Any advice would be helpful!

 

[crabgrass]

So I been fighting with high nutrient in my tank for couple months now. I’ve added 2oz Chaeto before but green hair algae killed it in my Refugium. But I’ve decided to try one more time with better light(tunze purple light) and 4oz of chaeto this time, it’s been about 2 weeks now and it’s starting to turn brown and I’m not seeing much growth, if anything it looks like it’s shrinking. My nitrate is like 80 and phos around .71… so shouldn’t chaeto be growing like crazy? I’m running the light for 8 and half hours after my tank light goes off. Any advice would be helpful!

What else are you adding to the tank

 

[MrZ3no]

I was dosing nopox for like a week but I’ve stopped for couple days now. Also I add ab+ once a week. Today I dosed some chaeto grow for the first time. That’s about it

 

[Subsea]

I was dosing nopox for like a week but I’ve stopped for couple days now. Also I add ab+ once a week. Today I dosed some chaeto grow for the first time. That’s about it

High nutrients do not control the rate of growth for macro algae, but any one low nutrient will limit macro algae growth. Iron is a major limiting nutrient and should be dosed. Consider dosing silicates which will grow diatoms which feeds micro inverts that sequester nitrogen & phosphate to be recycled into biomass.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

I was dosing nopox for like a week but I’ve stopped for couple days now. Also I add ab+ once a week. Today I dosed some chaeto grow for the first time. That’s about it

Take care with dosing nopox and trying to grow macro at the same time. There are varying opinions out there on whether it will kill off macro algae like chaeto or not. If you want to lower your parameters and you want to dose something there are several heterotrophic bacteria out there like PNS Pro Bio, Bacter7 and various other products. But you also need to be careful that you don't lower the nitrates or phosphates too quickly because this can also potentially kill the macros that you are trying to grow.

Please let us know if you have more questions or need help!

 

[jhadaway]

My Tunze wouldn't grow chaeto either. It's not strong enough in my opinion, especially if you want to outcompete the algae in the display. I put the tunze underneath shining up and put in this over the top

It took off after that.

 

[BuilderT]

I grow my chaeto with this light from walmart and it does great.

Great Value 4-Head Flexible LED Clamp Grow Light, 20W Selectable Spectrum - Walmart.com

Today Buy Great Value 4-Head Flexible LED Clamp Grow Light, 20W Selectable Spectrum at Walmart.com

www.walmart.com

I started with about 4 inch ball and within a couple months it has filled my refugium, at least a 10 gallon tank size area. It works so well I have 0 nitrate and .01 phos about to do a massive trimming and turn off the protein skimmer for a while. Not sure if this will help.