makingfilms Posted April 4, 2016 Share Posted April 4, 2016 Hello, Background: I have a 17 gallon ada style tank Maybe 15 gallons of water and my filtration consists of filter floss and some cheato in my ac70(in tank media basket). I have a mame skimmer and also worth mentioning I dose bio fuel daily (1 drop per gallon) and mb7 weekly (one capful). My tank has been running for a month with no real issues except for some yellowish film algae that has started growing on my rocks which i believe i am starting to beat. This tank is an upgrade from a 8 month pico which was a downgraded 55 gallon reef so about of my rock is very well established. My water change schedule is about 5 gallons every week and a half sometimes two and I only use catalina nsw water and rodi water to top off. I don't test a lot of my params but my salinity is 1.0255 ph is about 8.0-8.3 and my nitrates are around 10 ppm after two weeks no water change (yesterday pm). I do have an Api test kit so who really knows if these are accurate. About three weeks ago I added some Chateo to my ac70 from reef cleaners and it looked super good and healthy and over the last three weeks it has disintegrated to maybe a pingpong ball. There seems to be a lot of dead cheato in the back of my ac70 as well. I have a cree 60w 5100k led over my ac70 and can run it 24 hours a day but last week cut it back because I wasn't sure if my die off was related to too much light. My question is why or how did I kill my chateo? Is under 10ppm nitrate to little nutrients for the macro? Is the flow to great through my ac70? I currently have it on the lowest flow setting. is it the dosing of mb7 and biofuel killing it off? And if chaeto isn't right for this set up what would you recommend running in my ac70 instead. I use to run chemipure blue, but recently stopped and I am trying to avoid it if possible. I did not see any great results in my pico constantly running it and would rather not buy it every month unless it is truly the better option. Link to comment
SantaMonica Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Chaeto is easily out-competed for nutrients by other life, and in your case it might have been the periphyton on your established rocks. Link to comment
makingfilms Posted April 18, 2016 Author Share Posted April 18, 2016 The chateo died on me last week. It was starting to fall apart and get into my DT so I ditched it. I am running floss and went back to chemipure blue. I would def switch back however if my chateo wouldn't die. Current Stocking: two juvenile snowflake clowns a pink streak wrasse emerald crab 3 flame tip btas (I had one originally on a rock and it split a couple months ago and the smaller one split last week so when it heals sell the two small to the lfs) 3 RFAS a 20 gallon CUC from reef cleaners and some hermit crabs. I feed 1 cube frozen reef nutrition formula one every other day and a half cube mysis on the off days. so the tank is fed. My nitrates are still very low. Link to comment
Matteo Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Hmmm could be the fact the nitrates are so low? I totally get how running chateo is desired because it's more natural then chemipure (which I am not a fan of). Why do you dose bio? Link to comment
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