I have a 3 gallon pico with a AC70 modded filter/fuge on the back with cheato in the fuge. This has been running for about a month(the filter/fuge) with a 5 watt submersable light from intank on opposite light schedules as the main light. I was looking at the cheato today and and it was looking kind of sad, I picked it up and instead of being springy and plasticy, it was falling apart and breaking up. Does any one have any ideas? All my levels and perameters are fine and everything else in the tank is doing great.

Is it turning from green to almost clear? It might not be getting enough light.

I thought the overhead lighting would be enough to keep my first ball of chaeto alive but it did exactly what you describe and just got whispy and melted away until I got a proper fuge light and a new ball of chaeto.

I thought I have heard lots of good reviews about using the submersible halogen lights for chaeto and thought they should be enough light, sounds like it might want more though.

I use a 20W halogen over my sump to grow cheato.

IME, it is heat that kills chaeto more than anything and I mean direct radiant heat like from heaters or hot lights.

It's definetly not going clear color, it's just breaking apart in my hands. If the light i bought that was specificly designed to be a refugium light is not enough i'm going to be pissed.

I just swapped the submersable for the 9watt external that came with the the picotope and reset the KRL timers. I guess we'll wait and see what happens.

If that 9W improves things, it will take a minimum of days to be sure. Chaeto is slow to recover from harvesting or other disturbances but once it does, it takes off.

Thanks for the help fellas, i'll update in a few days.