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Refugium help!


Mackeyp

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Two months ago I made a traditional HOB aquaclear 70 Refugium. I purchased some chaeto and an led light that many people recommended online for growing chaeto. It now appears my chaeto is dead and growing some sort of bubble algae on the surface. I also have atleast 200+ pods in the Refugium. My big concern is that I have more of a nitrate factory rather than reducer and was hoping for a few opinions... I have posted some pics below to see. Also I do run the light 24/7 as some others do and my nitrates seem to stay between 0-10 depending on how you read the API test kit so I'm not sure if the chaeto doesn't like that. I'm not sure if I should buy more chaeto or if I should use some type of different idea in the Refugium. I'm really open to whatever so just throw it out there please.

 

Thanks,

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For a start that light isn't adequate to grow anything really, those look like cool white LEDs, you'd get away with warm white, but I don't think they're putting out enough PAR and PUR as they are not high output diodes. It's quite a deep chamber so you'd need something with some real clout to give good growth.
API test kits are notoriously inaccurate too so I would get your LFS to test for you or get a better brand kit to be sure of you NO3.

Finally, algae's need periods of darkness to grow healthily. 18-20 hours lit in 24 is normally max for algae to do well. This hole 24 hour lighting to aid growth crap is a load of rubbish and hinders more than helps.

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If you start pulling out some of that algae periodically, you would technically have an algae scrubber. Benny, I had a question about what you were saying and the color temperature. What's wrong with cool white? If I recall, cool white is around 6,000 K (please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm running a planted tank with 6500K bulbs and then another one that has 10K leds and three actinics and both are growing plants just fine. I actually really need to trim and thin out the tank with the 10K LEDs.

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You get more of the red spectrum in warm white (particularly warm white LEDs) which is better for growth, particularly algae growth. But yes, if a white light source is bright enough you'll get growth from most things, just a case of efficiency.

When cheato and other macro algae's are growing well you have to trim them/remove excess and this is how they export NO3 from your system. Yes the algae's consume NO3 to fuel growth, but they are still technically holding that NO3 until you remove the algae from the system. You could compare cutting back you cheato to cleaning a scrubber screen I suppose, never thought of it like that.


A 65k compact florescent bulb which are often still favourites in sumps or refugiums give out a broader spectrum of light compared to an LED which has a narrower spectrum. That's why hydroponic grow lights are arrays of multiple LEDs (normally a blue red combination in a 1:2 ratio).

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Are there any lights you would recommend that would be under about 50 bucks or so? Also should I buy another chunk of chaeto or just pull from this algae and hope there is some life left in there? I really wish my LFS's had chaeto but it seems the only way is to order online.

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I'd be tempted to give one of these a crack.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultra-Bright-CREE-E27-Dimmable-PAR20-PAR30-PAR38-LED-Light-Bulb-Lamp-85-265V-E1A-/171430327445?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item27ea0b3495

 

The par 20 (9w) version with 60 degree lenses should be fine in warm white. Do enough searching you might find a 2 red 1 blue specialist version, but I bet that would be supper expensive.

As these cost sod all I'd be tempted to get a couple, see how warm white does and then if your not happy, source some red and blue epistar or similar diodes, disassemble one and de-solder the original diodes and replace them with the red and blue to make your own grow light to see if that was any better.

You'd want 660nm read and 450nm blue.

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No worries, something like that on a goose neck or similar would give you the punch you need and cost sod all.

 

The cheato you have maybe saveable if you get better lighting on it quick, but you may end up having to start with a new crop once your set up with you new lighting.


 

Bloody hell the first ones a bit over kill for the setup lol, but good work finding some affordable 'grow lights'. They'd all be great solutions here.

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No worries, something like that on a goose neck or similar would give you the punch you need and cost sod all.

 

The cheato you have maybe saveable if you get better lighting on it quick, but you may end up having to start with a new crop once your set up with you new lighting.

 

Bloody hell the first ones a bit over kill for the setup lol, but good work finding some affordable 'grow lights'. They'd all be great solutions here.

For the first one there is a cascading window where you can select different versions. The smallest one is a 3x3 watt version. haha.

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From my understanding, green isn't an important spectrum when it comes to photosynthesis.

 

410-430nm 450nm and 660nm tend to be accepted as peak spectrums for growth in most things, green is in the spectral range our eyes are most sensitive too, so that's why 'lime' is now being used in LED builds as it brightens the look of your tank without ramping up PAR and PUR numbers to unusable levels, think it also helps counter the purple hue you can get with LED lighting sources.

I can't see it having any benefit in a grow light as its not a display feature.

Saying that I have a 12 diode knock off par 38 over my coral bay/refugium and that has a green and red diode in it, the rest are blue and white and I have good algae and coral growth from it. But I'm pretty sure green has no benefit for this purpose.

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NYFishies posted this light in another thread and I have not found a better option for a inexpensive dedicated red/blue refugium light:

 

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M2FCMSY/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A325274ZEF9XYZ

 

Original thread:

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/361054-chaeto-led-6500k-vs-red-blue/

 

But for an AC70 you can probably get by with this 5 LED one that has free Prime shipping (if you have Prime), so no worries about returns and customs / shipping from China :

 

http://smile.amazon.com/Flowering-Hydroponics-Vegetables-Spotlight-Greenhouse/dp/B00LHXI6Y6/ref=pd_sim_86_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=16MJ21ZGGTG2FSAD7N37

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Man so many great options! I went with the Amazon one due to the fact I have prime and don't want to wait too long for the light to get here. Maybe I can salvage what I got. Once again thanks for all your help guys!

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Good luck, I think you'll have much better growth with these bulbs everyone's suggested.

Cheato is fairly tuff, if any is still slightly green it will come back under the better lighting.

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