Hi all,
I'm at just about my limit with trying to grow chaeto. My nutrients are usually around 30-40 ppm nitrate and .03 -.06 phophsate. I've got plenty of flow through the sump. I've used a kessil h380 and recently bought an A360x thinking the h380 might have just been too intense. It's hung 12 inches off the water. I get a par measurement of 400 on the surface and 280 at the bottom of the sump. Double those values for the h380. Yet the chaeto never grows quickly and ends up just falling apart ( still green ) but ends up just all over the tanks. It clogs up the skimmer and small pieces just float around the display. Dosing iron or chaeto grow has no impact. For whatever reason my system just doesn't agree with chaeto.
So far my sump is only successful with growing hair algae and cyano. I'm starting to get a nasty case of turf algae growing on my rocks in the display. I thought perhaps low phosphate could be the culprit, but when I increase phosphate it just increases in the algae in the display.
I've tried sea lettuce before and it too just ended up disintegrating and i think i've got too much flow blowing through the sump for it anyways. I've searched for months to try and find answers to what maybe preventing the chaeto to grow and i've had no success. I've spent a small fortune with algae barn trying again and again with chaeto.
I suppose anything I can get to grow and suck out that nitrate would be better than what i'm doing now. Has anyone had success with other macro algae that can compete at the level chaeto is suppose to? Being tasty to the tangs would be a plus. For chaeto to supposedly be easy to grow, I suck at it. If all else fails I guess i'll try to set up an algae reactor, but I was really hoping to have a nice fuge section of the sump. There's something relaxing about watching all the small creatures living in it.
For reference the 120 gallon tank has been up for about 1.5 years and this will be the fourth time i've had to totally reset the refugium.
I'm at just about my limit with trying to grow chaeto. My nutrients are usually around 30-40 ppm nitrate and .03 -.06 phophsate. I've got plenty of flow through the sump. I've used a kessil h380 and recently bought an A360x thinking the h380 might have just been too intense. It's hung 12 inches off the water. I get a par measurement of 400 on the surface and 280 at the bottom of the sump. Double those values for the h380. Yet the chaeto never grows quickly and ends up just falling apart ( still green ) but ends up just all over the tanks. It clogs up the skimmer and small pieces just float around the display. Dosing iron or chaeto grow has no impact. For whatever reason my system just doesn't agree with chaeto.
So far my sump is only successful with growing hair algae and cyano. I'm starting to get a nasty case of turf algae growing on my rocks in the display. I thought perhaps low phosphate could be the culprit, but when I increase phosphate it just increases in the algae in the display.
I've tried sea lettuce before and it too just ended up disintegrating and i think i've got too much flow blowing through the sump for it anyways. I've searched for months to try and find answers to what maybe preventing the chaeto to grow and i've had no success. I've spent a small fortune with algae barn trying again and again with chaeto.
I suppose anything I can get to grow and suck out that nitrate would be better than what i'm doing now. Has anyone had success with other macro algae that can compete at the level chaeto is suppose to? Being tasty to the tangs would be a plus. For chaeto to supposedly be easy to grow, I suck at it. If all else fails I guess i'll try to set up an algae reactor, but I was really hoping to have a nice fuge section of the sump. There's something relaxing about watching all the small creatures living in it.
For reference the 120 gallon tank has been up for about 1.5 years and this will be the fourth time i've had to totally reset the refugium.
