I have had Chaeto in my system for about 5 weeks it seemed to be doing fine levels are as following

0 ammonia
0 Nitrite
0 Nitrate Decrease from 10 ppm once chaeto was added
PH 8.1
S/G 1.025

Chaeto is in a 10 gallon refugium lit by 2 150w daylight 6500k flourecents run in reverse cycle.

Anyone Help on this? It seems to have reduced in size by 1/2. Dead macro is beige to clear in color and falls apart easily and has since gotten into the main display (20H) I have removed the large majority of the macro that was dead and is now dark green ( whats left anyway) Has anyone experienced this? Are Nirtrated not high enough for survival?

Thanks in advance,

well if you dont have much for the algae to eat this will happen.

You think the lights are to much?

How old is the system?

4 months

Hmmm... It's not being directly heated is it? Like by IR from the fluorescents or by another source?

wait 2x 150watts?
thats a bit high for a 10g sump. isnt like 65watts average for those kind of things?

just make sure that theres a lot of flow and your good.

150w is fine for the regular fluorescent lighting, I think your main issue is that you need the soft white 2500k bulbs for chaeto, so you've got the wrong ones and it's not getting enough light. If you put the 150w 2500k ones on there at 24 hours a day for a week or so it'll bounce back and then some

The setup is as follows I have a MJ1200 creating flow through the fuge. From what I have read the slower the flow through the refugium the better. Am I wrong on this?

I have 2 100W heaters in the same compartment as the chaeto. Could that be killing it off?

Next I have 2x 75W 6500k Bulbs below is a picture of them.



Click to view attachment


Thanks for the help all!

I just checked the lights again and they are in fact 2700k is that too yellow/red?

You should try trimming the cheato agressively, and doing it regularly if it recovers. Algae grows until it runs out of nutrients, if you reduce the amount of macro it should be able to support itself again. It is the growth/multiplication that cleans the water, not having a big ball in there all the time.

I had the same problem in my AP24. I kept the chaeto in the display under 64w of pc lighting. Mr. Fosi advised after I replaced it twice, it might be getting too much light, so I moved it to the other side of the tank and dropped it 6" to about 10" from the light. At the time, my nitrates were 20 and I replaced it for the third time. It stayed nice and green for about 2 months and then started to die off ( turning translucent and falling apart ). After discussing it with several reefers in a local club, the only thing we could come up with is that there wasn't enough/right nutrients in the system to maintain the macro. I only have three small fish and feed sparingly. My nitrates are now at 5 and hopefully they won't spike because I took the chaeto out.

I have been told that if it doesn't grow, it won't export nutrients. If your nitrates start to climb, put it back in, if not, you may not need it.

so chaeto needs a 24 hour light cycle?

That could certainly be a contributing factor...



No, but to recover and stop melting away a 24 hour light cycle would help immensely. Running chaeto for 24hours in general will result in much better nutrient export, but it's not a must by any means.

No, most people run it either on a reverse daylight cylcle ( when the display lights are off the chaeto light comes on) so that the ph is stable during the night. And some people run it in their tanks ( what i do) and some people keep a 24 hour daylight cycle which is kinda un nessacary because all photosynthetic beings need a down time when they can rebuild cells ( i think)

well thank you all for the responses! I was reading up on the flow rates needed and currently due to reading on several forums that refugiums need slow flow rates for nutrient extraction, I decided to go with a MJ1200 with the head pressure it was pushing maybe 60gph. Well after doing much research I found that Chaeto is the exact opposite. It infact needs to be tumbled (not going to happen with 60GPH. So after trying to remedy the flow rate I had broke a seal in my pvc overflow!!! I will for now seperate the fuge and main and rotate the water in during W/C's while I wait for my glss-holes overflow kit to come in.

I will also be moving the tank soon so this will be a good time to do this.

Thanks agian

try a 5100K, I had great results with it. 5100k Bulb

Plus no reflector needed!

I don't agree with this. Macroalgae needs light to extract nutrients and flow to renew the nutrient pool.

Thank you, I actually did more research and found that a higher flow rate is desirable. So much to learn I have! (<----insert yoda voice here)

My chaeto died off too. Not really sure why. I do have about 5x the amount of chemi-pure elite in there and I think it may be sucking out the nutrients the chaeto needs to grow. I may change out the chemi-pure for just normal carbon next time and try the chaeto again.

I would also recommend a higher kelvin rated lamp. 5100-6500k would work well.

Not to question your knowlege sir but there seems to be some difference in opinion on the kelvin temp on the light. I do appreciate the feedback, However what are your thoughts as to why the Higher K light working better on Chaeto Life? so Bluer Vs Yellow ?? Thanks agian

i run 6500 k swirly bulbs and dont spin my chaeto just flip it every now and then. it sits directly under the little 15 watt light seems to do great. then i have some that is inderectly lit by my 150 sunpod that grows way to fast. feed your refugium when you kill the lights on it. you dont have to feed it alot but it is a refugium. you have little bugs and what not in there that need to eat too. and the chaeto needs the nutrients. just my opinion. i feed my refugium once every 3 days. and if you have a refugium, ubless you get green water or a chemical in there i wouldnt run any chemical filtration.

5100-6500K is much closer to daylight than 2700. It's also personal experience, and from what I've read other aquarists have used, to successfully keep macro. And to be perfectly honest, I don't have a better explanation than that. It's just what seems to work best IMHO.

I read some where that depending on K temp, the chaeto will turn either dark green or light green/yellow.
I use 6500K and have decent growth.

ScubaSteve, what are you using to feed your refugium? It seems counter-productive to me to add nutrients to the tank if the sole purpose of a refugium is to remove nutrients from the water column??

I could see dropping pellets or some mysis in there if there were shrimp or other large inverts living in there...

A summary of my Chaetomorpha crassa observations:

- Does not do well in systems younger than 2 months (sometimes up to 5 months is required).
- Dies (or fades) when heated directly by radiant heat from MH/halogen lamps, heaters or other such sources.
- Tolerates cold very well until it reaches freezing temps.
- Grows slowly (i.e. doesn't die) in low-nutrient environments.
- Like higher plants, it displays different growth morphologies when grown under different colors of light.
- Generally impossible to kill, though in some situations kicks over with no apparent cause; virtually always in systems younger than 6 months.
- Can survive for prolonged periods without light.

I grow mine under a 20W halogen (xenon) puck and it grows like gangbusters. It tends to fade translucent right under the light where it is hottest and the light is most intense, but recovers when I turn the mass over.

Well that makes a ton of sense due to the fact that on both sides of the Chaeto I have a 100W hydor! Looks like i have some redesigning to do! Top Notch FOSI! and thanks again

i feed marine cuisine at lights out. the purpose is to feed my bugs.. if you have a good healthy refugium there will be tons of bugs in it. they get sucked into the return and fed to my coral. or other bugs in the tank.. since i dont have any fish i have to keep some kind of nutrients going in order to keep my macro's going as well. refugiums serve many purposes. helps to keep the tank params stable at night, helps to feed the tank, adds more water volume in my case, gives me a place to do top off and water changes without disturbing the main tank... and last but not least, it feeds the disease. something else i get to play with

+1 for the 5k bulbs and from my experience, may need changed out every 9-10 months for really good growth.

fosi am i right in thinkin that fuges do best with high flow to keep things from settling, but low turnover to improve dwell time and thus nutrient uptake by the macro. so really its both types of flow.

When my chaeto fills up my HOB filter fuge and I pull it out for pruning there is a round indentation in the back from my heater, it grows all around it and no dead spots except for where it has grown out of the water. I think it is due to the high flow in that area that keeps any local warm/hot spots from forming.

I can't see how it would benefit from lower flow though, I think if anything it will get more nutrient contact with higher flow not lower.

i know how you feel i stare at my 'fuge ALOT once the light go out on my display but my point here is, i feed my fuge as well... however i stick to powdered HIGH QUALITY(key phrase) flake food once a week and once a week i also drip some live phyto my LSF owner is so generous to give me small bags of when i make my stop

I've heard this before here and on other forums, but I've never been able to come up with a good line of reasoning to support it.

Your display is a nutrient source and (in this discussion at least) the sump/refugium is supposed to be the nutrient sink. It therefore seems to me that to maximize nutrient removal, you want the water to move efficiently from source to sink.

You don't want your sink to become depleted relative to the source, because that would indicate an inefficient transfer of nutrients and a lower than maximum uptake rate. But these are the very things that the low-turnover folks seem to advocate.

I personally have a low-flow sump (100-150 gph through a 10g), designed to both grow macroalgae and facilitate settling of particles. I like the idea of my sump being the a gathering place of detritus because it is the perfect place for sponges, worms and pods to flourish. The chaeto provides a matrix of habitat space and way to really diffuse the flow and cause particles to drop out.

My middle chamber fills up with chaeto in ~3-4 weeks, which is enough to keep my N and P undetectable. It has also accumulated 0.5-1 cm of detrital substrate since I started it.

And you're not bothering to remove this detritus? Are you seeing it as habitat?

im not so sure that having detritis in the sump is such a bad thing. there are more than enough factors plaing a role. detrivours and macros will keep it in check. im glad someone has said something abotu this because ive seriously been wandering if settling debri wouldnt actually become a "mud" over time....


i have 10X's turnover with both of my refugiums and have added a power head to the one under my main tank. this works out good because there is a constant water motion in the sump to ensure macr-nutrient uptake. i agree with the low flow tank refugium transfer. at the same time i have seen an increase in growth from the chaeto with the added tank circulation.


i have some sps food in powder form. man that stuff cause the worst algae bloom in my little tank. of course that was before refugium. i like to add the solid meaty foods so that my refugium inhabitants are sure to get something to eat.. by the way the other day i witnessed a 1/2" amphipod and a bristleworm having a serious tu-o-war match over a piece of marine cuisine.

I don't see a reason for removing it. I see it as part habitat, part food.

Habitat for anerobic bacteria and it certainly does do that. 1 mm or so below the surface is black with metal sulfides. It also serves as food for them since a lot of the detrital matter is organic carbon.

I am sure that it provides habitat for other macro inverts as well, which is also a good thing IMO.



You'll have uptake as long as there is sufficient light and any water motion at all. That you have seen increased growth is interesting... I'm happy with mine.

naturally youll have uptake but if you get a higher turnover (not wave action or anything like that) especially with chaeto, it only make sense that the further into the ball of chaeto the water can penetrate, the better nutrient uptake and faster growth. of course i could be way off. ive been known to be wrong a time or two

I get the idea of distributing nutrients into the chaeto mass, but I've found it unnecessary for fast growth. Glad it's working for you.

the main reason for aiming a power head through it was because the wad of chaeto is to big to spin. which aso means i have to turn it over every week

I have very slow flow through my fuge. I also have a 10g sump, about 5g of that is fuge. My tank is a month old. My chaeto has quadrupled in size (starting about baseball-sized) in 3 weeks. My system, of course, isn't rock solid in age yet, but what I've done with my chaeto seems to have worked extremely well.

My first thought on your lighting was WHOA. Mine is very happy under 2 13W 5500k compact fluorescent bulbs on 24/7. I think you might be wasting energy with your fuge lighting, at the very least!

Thank you for the input I just went through your thread very nice! As for the chaeto I am almost certain that the die off had to do with a multitude of things. first off the nitrates before I add put chaeto in were at 5ppm and thats with giving a ppm or two, the flow rate was nothing close to 60-80 GPH, and it sat in between 2 100W Hydor heaters.

I will still keep the flow rate the same from the fuge to the display, However I have created a sort of closed loop in the refugium with an old 402 powerhead. So hopefully this will help give me best of both worlds. I will be looking into some different bulbs and have moved the heaters to the first comparment ( my 10g is devided into 3 compartments as well. So hopefully I will beable to get so decent growth

Let me know how that powerhead-in-the-fuge for circulation works for you. I might try it myself if it seems to do well!

ive had my sump set up now for justa couple of weeks max. probably a week and a half. my chaeto has tripled (literally) in size. since ive started the refugium, really cool stuff has started happening. about 3 days ago i started noticing particulate matter in suspension in the display.. the funny part is that i pulled the filter sock off last night.. there is a little more after pulling the filter sock off but not much.. anyway, since this crap started floating around in the tank ive noticed really sick polyp extension. i recall one of these blooms happening a few weeks back and my prange digitata grew 1/4" in 8 days. that's a 1/4" on each branch. thats not mentioning all the new nubs it put out. i dont believe these blooms to be harmful in fact, i honestly believe it is a mix of bacteria colonized detritis and pod larvae.. naturally occuring plankton... i can look in this massive ball of chaeto and it is plum filled with amphipods.. i love my refugium

well after 3 weeks my chaeto is double in size from when I even originally purchased it.. Two things i know for sure the lighting works fine and the flow was the issue! the little 402 ph creates enough flow to keep it moving!

Thanks all