What kills Chaeto???

[OneFast3]

I have tried twice now to get chaeto to grow. Nitrates are a little high about in the 20's. I put iron in this time and it still dies. Temp is around 79. Ph is 8.2 avg. not too much variance in either. Its a 90 gal tank with a 110 sump that has about 6" of sand (about the same in main tank). Nautalius skimmer. About 90 lbs of rock. The light for the chaeto is the one that is recommended on Melevsreef, 2 of them.

[dtaranath]

i have the same problem.

[Chad Vossen]

does the fuge area have plenty of flow? that might help it.

[OneFast3]

You would have to see my setup, but in one area I tried yes, the other area has a little lower flow.

[yiliyang]

I have the same problem. They just bleaches and melt away. I tried iron, I tried flow, I tried less flow, nothing really helps. I tried PC light, I tried 630K bulbs, same result all the time. I even tried chaeto from different sources.

Yili

[cbonito]

If the water is nutrien poor, you don't need chaeto. That is probably what is killing it. It's starving to death.

Be happy!

[Plankt0s]

If your cheato is in your sump...is there a light on it. In my experience cheato doesnt need alot of flow, I have it in a small fuge with hardly any flow but it does get ALOT of light. I also purposly overfeed my tank to make sure that it has enough nitrates and phosphates to live.

[hdyoung]

I have a similar problem, but my cheato does not die, it just never really grows. I started out with a big ball of it as well. It slowly disintegrated to a smaller ball, then stabilized to a small size over the course of a few months.

In the same 55 gallon refugium, I have the dreaded "grape caulerpa" or whatever that bad stuff is, and it is growing like mad. In a month, the whole aquarium will probably be full of it and I will start regular harvesting. I would rather have cheato or some other better alga, but I really want to get some greenery growing down there and this is the only stuff I have been able to grow so far.

Details - 1 year old system, 55 gallon basement refugium, three 35 watt PC-spotlights (melev-suggested-types) on 24/7, low flow. I have tried high flow as well and it didnt seem to help. My nitrates are high (50 ppm approximately) but the tank seems stable (fish and corals healthy for the past 3 months, no deaths). I feed a frozen mix of stuff daily, and dose calcium, alk and magnesium to keep stable levels.

[graveyardworm]

Cheato in my experience grows better with higher amounts of light. So if you have nitrates, are changing water regularly or dosing iron, and feeding fish then the problem is your light.

Are you using the indoor spiral compact or the outdoor spotlight PC?

Are you running the light 24/7? If so I would suggest alowing for a dark period, plants have adapted over millions of years to grow with a dark period, and there are some functions ( respiration ) which happen almost entirely during the dark period, and are necessary for good plant health.

[hdyoung]

I have two of the specific PC spotlight bulbs that Melev recommended. 5100K I think. I recently added another bulb that is a lot yellower. I dont know if these are indoor or outdoor bulbs. By their ruggedized look, I would guess outdoor. I have about 100 watts of PC light focused on roughly 2/3 of my 55 gallon fuge, and visually the light is as bright as my main display. Incidentally, my acros are growing fine so evidently no lack of light there either.

I have been running the lights 24/7. I'll start allowing a dark period, watch the caulerpa, and see what happens. I personally havent had any bad experiences with my caulerpa, but from what I read I would prefer to reduce my use of it for the obvious reasons.

[luvstns726]

I've worked with Chaeto for years, and it can be mysterious at times.

Here's a suggestion I have found useful. Turn down the flow to low, and after a few hours look at the baseline pearling rate (oxygen bubbles produced). Then try some things, watching the pearling rate.

If nitrates are high, and I presume you have plenty of phosphate, you could have a pH/Co2 issue. I won't say "carbon shortage" because some scientists get upset since these plants presumably take up carbonates, but I have seen occasions when covering the top of the tank tightly will promptly increase the pearling rate. This is likely if your pH is 8.6 or so, in the presence of non-limiting nitrate, phosphate, and iron. If not co2, it's probably the light; if not light, it's probably allelopathy but you can prove that by counting pearling.

In any event, using the "counting bubble" technique will enable you to determining a light or nutrient limiting factor very quickly- within a few hours.

I have seen organic carbon stop chaeto growth, presumably due to nutrient limitation by bacterial competition, but possibly allelopathy (bacterial competitive toxins). I think this does occur at times with excessive phosphate or organic carbon inputs. What's your pH and feeding schedule?

[hdyoung]

I have a junky pH test kit which reads approximately 8.2, and I have not tracked my pH over the course of the day. Nitrated read high, but my phosphates read less then 0.25 ppm by test kit.

I feed every day or every other day, a small cube of a mishmash of stuff that roughly resembles the "Borneman recipe".

[luvstns726]

If you try closing up the tank top, let us know if it works.

[garymcgrath]

luvstns726,
Could you describe what you mean by "pearling rate"? How do you determine it?

[graveyardworm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8954066#post8954066 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by garymcgrath
luvstns726,
Could you describe what you mean by "pearling rate"? How do you determine it?

Wondering the same thing. What the heck you talkin bout.

[flemingljr]

does a high pearling rate mean there's excess carbon? what's good, high or low pearling rate?

[bigB]

i think he means the small oxygen bubbles that start to form in the cheato as it starts to grow when the lights are on. kinda like when you have a algae problem in your tank and as the light is on longer during the day you start to see tons of bubbles in the algae. plants let off oxygen.

[dendro982]

You know, I had a difficult time with chaeto in a first couple of months - it became dark and disintegrated into a small pieces, floating in the tank - really annoying. Then the top portion started to grow.

No relation to light (tried sunlight, 6,500K, 4100K, now have one portion under Melev's flood light, but soft white, ~2,300K, will see), may be 4,100K 13W was not so good as 27W 6,500K :D.

No relation to pH, alkalinity (I have more than one nano-tank), when nitrates above 20 ppm, phosphates 0.5 ppm - grows faster, than with nitrates 80 ppm and phosphates 1 ppm (had this for some time, could be other unaccounted factors too).

Give it a time, or light, or phosphates...

One more thing - the ball of chaeto grows better for me, when it's loosely packed. In deep tank or bucket the bottom portions started disintegrate again. Reduced light? But I tried adding side light too. Who knows.

[Rod Cobble]

I was actually thinking of adding a spot of green to my main aquarium. Was thinking of Chaeto. Would you guys recommend this? or should it only be grown in sump? also need to know do Tangs eat it? If not chaeto, what?

Thanks,

Rod

[dendro982]

Rod: Chaeto is unsightly in the tank, and should be contained by something, like mesh or soap holder with suction cap, or it may float and interfere with powerheads and corals.

Green spot in the tank:
the easy way, IMHO, could be using neon-green candycane - trouble-free and bright, or green star polyps - they are looking like grass, onlt they should be prevented from encroaching the LR around, using principle of campfire: coral is placed onto LR rubble, it starts to grow onto it, replace the last with the new LR rubble or the shell/rock from a dollar store. And you will have a frags for trade or giving away.
The macroalgae way - I had seen very beautiful tanks' photos with feathery caulerpa, but: it it starts to grow on the porous rock, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate. Tried myself - it doesn't grow in my tanks at all.

[Rod Cobble]

Thanks for the input. Under my tank is pretty full. I think a refugium is out of the question, without major mods to my biozone sump. I was trying to get benefits of chaeto but do it in tank. I may just stick to no plants and go with your candycane suggestion.

[dendro982]

There also is another way to export nutrients - white xenia, in tank. Good-looking, needs light and organic-laden water, just surround it by LR rubble for controlling spreading.
Sorry, can't give links right now - they are on another computer, but you can see viability of this idea by search on "refugium methodology" xenia, "xenia fuge", "xenia refugium", "xenia bed", "xenia scrubber".
It's all applicable for growing xenia inside the tank.

Here is mine, in relatively clean water and in very dirty water, same place:
http://thumb1.webshots.net/t/12/13/1/5/69/2763105690081040121PYyyjb_th.jpg (http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2763105690081040121PYyyjb) http://thumb1.webshots.net/t/59/59/9/26/43/2571926430081040121pwWZTt_th.jpg (http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2571926430081040121pwWZTt)

[dtaranath]

Xenia is all well and good for nutrient export, but that's only if you can keep it alive. Xenia is hit or miss with a lot of people, and those with good water quality seem to have a harder time keeping xenia alive. I am one of those people. I can keep corals healthy, but I can't keep xenia or chaeto for the life of me. I've tried everything. The only thing I can attribute is that I have good water quality (which I guess is not such a bad thing).

I just wish I could keep xenia alive.

[graveyardworm]

Sounds like your running a low nutrient/low DO system. Which would help explain why your cheato dies. If your able to keep your system in this fashion without cheato then why add cheato? Cheato IMO surves to purposes. The first being nutrient export ( without nutrients it will die ), the second being for a safe place for pods, but in a low nutrient environment its a futile endeavor, dosing will likely be necessary to keep the cheato alive, which kinda defeats the purpose in purposefully low nutrient a system.

However microalgae tends to thrive more on phosphates than nitrates. So one could keep keep cheato in a low phosphates/ low nitrates system simply by dosing nitrates. Provided a small amount of of phosphates is regularly added to the system as well ( fish food ).

I dont want to comment on the uptake ratio of cheato specifically, because I dont have that info, but typically the uptake ratio for marine plants is much higher on the nitrate side, for example the uptake ratio could be 20:1, thats 20 parts NO3 to 1 part PO4.


So for example your system has 1 part NO3 and 1 part PO4, the cheato is going to quickly remove the NO3 leaving most of the PO4 for micro(nuisance) alga to thrive on.

So by dosing NO3 as counterproductive as it may seem it will actually allow the cheato to remove more of the PO4 more efficiently. With an end result of the cheato outcompeting the micro/nuisance alga for nutrients thus limiting the growth of your nuisance alga.

I havent even touched on iron dosing here which does seem to improve the growth of cheato as well provided the other nutrients are available. The trick is to find a balance between the the three so that none become limited or overdosed.

[linklemming]

I am having the same problem with chaeto for over a year. Prior to my current problems, I had succesful chaeto growth for well over a year. It all seemed to start when I changed my fuge light and used the wrong one. With that light, any chaeto I would buy would never grow.

Once I figured out the light thing I have had much better success....but still ultimate failure. I have tried several wattage lights and different time periods but the results are always the same.

Basically what happens is when I first put in new chaeto, the growth is for lack of a better word......explosive. Within a matter of two weeks the chaeto is easily 2-4 times the size of the original. The growth seems to slowly subside with each cultivation until it seems to be non-existant.

Any ideas?

Gary

[graveyardworm]

Nutrient limitation.

[KyleP]

I think I can add another scenario to the nutrient limitation concept. I have a big ball of cheato in a 15 gallon section of my sump with a 100 watt 6500 k bulb on it. I know the light is enough becuase few xenia and shrooms in there are going nuts and I have some grape caulerpa that is also growing fast. The cheato stays alive and green, but really doesn't grow at all, or if it is, its really slow. I feed my fish twice a day, but its only what they will eat. A little at a time. I also have relatively few fish for my 75 gallon reef and a solid cleaning crew of about 75 right handed hermits (small) and shrimp. About a 100 pounds of life rock. Add in a 125 super skimmer that I have working very efficiently, and I really don't have anything to feed the cheato. Its the only thing I can come up with. Flow is also pretty decent around the cheato. But like someone mentioned, no worries, because the job of cheato is nutrient export and a lack of excessive nutrients is a good problem to have. My corals love the clean water and are going at a fast rate.