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Chaeto Dieing off


frahny

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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,

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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.

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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 :)

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

 

 

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.

 

 

 

post-48441-1264104596_thumb.jpg

 

 

Thanks for the help all!

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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.

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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.

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

 

That could certainly be a contributing factor...

 

:huh: so chaeto needs a 24 hour light cycle?

 

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.

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:huh: so chaeto needs a 24 hour light cycle?

 

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)

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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.

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!!! :owned: 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

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... refugiums need slow flow rates for nutrient extraction...

 

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

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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)

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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.

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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

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scubasteve2580

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.

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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.

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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...

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