Pink/White substance settling on chaeto..

[Chuk]

I also have an H380 and it seems to kill off the chaeto that grows near the surface directly underneath the light. Mine tends to turn a white to almost translucent color after about a week or so at the surface directly under the light. I just cut the center section out of my chaeto ball every other week. I don't get that white color anywhere else.

 

[XNavyDiver]

I also have the h380 and I've always had it on grow, never bloom. Bloom turns the sump glowing Barbie hot pink. Ewww. I also do the reverse schedule. I have both cheato and ulva in the sump, along with rubble and grunge. Another poster in this thread also mentioned pods. I add them about monthly. I have no idea what that stuff is in your sump @crabs_mcjones. I've never seen something like that in my sump. I have no clue if pods would feed on it, but it may be worth a try. None of my macro tumbles either, and I do get minor dustings of brown film algae that will adhere to the cheato every once in a while. I've got a handful of permanent resident sump snails that are able to feed on that.
It would be interesting to get a positive ID on it. I'll be following.

 

[Charterreefer]

I clean my cheato by plunging it into a five gallon bucket of old tank water and shake it around to remove the nasty stuff that sometimes grows on my cheato. After a water change I usually have a few buckets to rinse it in. It seems to break the cycle or slows it down considerably.

 

[Vincent100]

Pink? Cotton candy algae?

https://www.reefcleaners.org/nuisance-algae-id-guide

This is pink cotton candy
On it's way back after throwing loads of cheating covered with it

 

[Crabs McJones]

The blues are good also violet, and royal blue. @Dana Riddle was asking the question a month or so ago about the red spectrum and we were going back and forth with my usual silly sometimes manner with a couple of members. And Like @saltyfilmfolks asked, there is not a way to adjust the individual spectrums? I had my whites on to long and to high, once I made a 3 hour adjustment down in time on the white only spectrum that really fixed my algae problems. I have always run my greens and reds low.

Nope, there isn't a way to adjust individual spectrums. It's literally a knob that says "Off" "Bloom" or "Grow"

 

[Crabs McJones]

I also have the h380 and I've always had it on grow, never bloom. Bloom turns the sump glowing Barbie hot pink. Ewww. I also do the reverse schedule. I have both cheato and ulva in the sump, along with rubble and grunge. Another poster in this thread also mentioned pods. I add them about monthly. I have no idea what that stuff is in your sump @crabs_mcjones. I've never seen something like that in my sump. I have no clue if pods would feed on it, but it may be worth a try. None of my macro tumbles either, and I do get minor dustings of brown film algae that will adhere to the cheato every once in a while. I've got a handful of permanent resident sump snails that are able to feed on that.
It would be interesting to get a positive ID on it. I'll be following.

Weird part is I just added a whole mess load of pods a couple weeks ago. I won that pod giveaway where they were giving a handful of users 8 bottles of live pods.

 

[XNavyDiver]

Weird part is I just added a whole mess load of pods a couple weeks ago. I won that pod giveaway where they were giving a handful of users 8 bottles of live pods.

Have you posted this in the algae forum? Might be worth a shot. They will want a shot under the microscope of course...

 

[Crabs McJones]

Have you posted this in the algae forum? Might be worth a shot. They will want a shot under the microscope of course...

I'll try creating my own thread, I feel bad as it seems rev's thread got taken over a little bit. I hope he's reading and seeing all the advice as to dealing with the algae issue

 

[Crabs McJones]

I also have an H380 and it seems to kill off the chaeto that grows near the surface directly underneath the light. Mine tends to turn a white to almost translucent color after about a week or so at the surface directly under the light. I just cut the center section out of my chaeto ball every other week. I don't get that white color anywhere else.

How far off the waters surface do you have the light mounted? It seems that a foot or more seems to be the best.

 

[cracker]

Maybe try laying a sheet if paper towel over the water's surface . This works for me to pull off scummy stuff .it sticks to the paper pretty well.

 

[jsker]

Nope, there isn't a way to adjust individual spectrums. It's literally a knob that says "Off" "Bloom" or "Grow"

Yeah I got that from the past posts, that is a bumper and might be a issue that Kessel needs to be aware of by reaching out to Kessel.

 

[Chuk]

How far off the waters surface do you have the light mounted? It seems that a foot or more seems to be the best.

mine is about 8 inches off the water level. That's as high as I can get it with my stand height. I still get great growth with the light it just burns out that one section. This week is a trimming week Ill try and snag a picture if I remember when I get home from work.

 

[GSPClown94]

I just looked at the Kessil H380 and wow that looks like a ton of light! On my old aquarium I was growing chaeto with a JBJ macro glo 25 watt power compact and it would grow like crazy and I never had any weird algae problems or cyano. Going back to my previous post I definitely think the source of your problem could be too much light. Reduce the photoperiod and maybe even move the light up higher and see what happens.

 

[Crabs McJones]

I just looked at the Kessil H380 and wow that looks like a ton of light! On my old aquarium I was growing chaeto with a JBJ macro glo 25 watt power compact and it would grow like crazy and I never had any weird algae problems or cyano. Going back to my previous post I definitely think the source of your problem could be too much light. Reduce the photoperiod and maybe even move the light up higher and see what happens.

What I did was at 8PM when my display tank lights turn off, the fuge light comes on for 2 hours, then off for two hours, and it does that all the way until 10 am when the display lights come back on. So a total photoperiod of 8 hours with two hour breaks inbetween. Right now the light sits about 10 inches off the waters surface. Due to height restraints of my sump and stand thats as high as I can go.

 

[GSPClown94]

What I did was at 8PM when my display tank lights turn off, the fuge light comes on for 2 hours, then off for two hours, and it does that all the way until 10 am when the display lights come back on. So a total photoperiod of 8 hours with two hour breaks inbetween. Right now the light sits about 10 inches off the waters surface. Due to height restraints of my sump and stand thats as high as I can go.

I'm sure that Kessil wasn't cheap but you could always try a less intense refugium light if you still have problems.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

So should i try switching to the "bloom" channel, essentially dropping the blues? Or will the chaeto suffer?

You cold try a shift the other way, yes. But honestly don’t sweat it.

Ant change will, IMO take a while.
Its slow, and the light is only one small fraction of the issue.

And honesty probably not that big an issue, Esp combined with basic goood husbandry and the awareness that it’s there.

Funny thing is, it very well may go away on its own. Phases , and many the old guys would say.

 

[tigé21v]

can you add a bacterial additive in a bottle to add diversity/boost to the tank bacterial population to out compete what ever its eating?
worth a try ?

I tried Vibrant at the recommended (aggressive) dosage in an effort to knock out bryopsis a while back. A month or so into the treatment, the chaeto in my remote fuge melted and was replaced by what I assume was some sort of crazy bacteria. Looked much like the white frothy stuff posted in some of the pics in this thread, but much worse. The stuff would get more than an inch thick if I let it. I stopped the Vibrant, pulled the dying chaeto, drained and cleaned the remote fuge, and left the lights off over it for a while. After stopping the Vibrant, it took a couple of months or more before I could get chaeto to grow. That was around two years ago, and to this day, if I run the lights over the chaeto too long, I start to get the froth again. Prior to adding the Vibrant, I'd get cyano or a brown dusty-looking algae on the chaeto from time to time. But never the froth.
I my case, I feel it's some sort of bacteria that stays in check as long as conditions do not favor it.