Floating STUFF in refugium??????

Jonsey87 · Oct 6, 2023

Hey everyone!! New to marine tanks and trying to understand/work out kinks. My question is about my refugium. I'm currently running a HOB I made from an Aquaclear 110. Just running chaeto with a few dosings of copepods. I noticed today that there's numerous of these clear floating things. I am wondering what they are. Are they bad? Are they good? Should I do something and if so then what? Apologies if this has been asked before. I tried searching but couldn't find much. Thanks!!!

Birdman Broham · Oct 6, 2023

Very hard to tell based upon the photos. But looks like surface oil. You can use a paper towel to pull it out by simply setting it on top of it. Or get a surface skimmer. This is common inside tanks that don’t have an overflow. You can also aim a power head to agitate the surface

Jonsey87 · Oct 7, 2023

Hey thanks!! Yeah I figured the pictures didn't do it justice. So many things in the aquarium are hard to get good photos of. I will try that in the morning. Appreciate it!

UMALUM · Oct 7, 2023

It could be early signs of die off. Are you making sure the chaeto is constantly tumbling and on the move? My apologies if you are but from the picture it looks rather unhealthy and stagnant.

Lavey29 · Oct 7, 2023

UMALUM said:
It could be early signs of die off. Are you making sure the chaeto is constantly tumbling and on the move? My apologies if you are but from the picture it looks rather unhealthy and stagnant.

My chaeto doesn't tumble at all and I cut football size pieces off it each week. Grows like a weed.

Lavey29 · Oct 7, 2023

Jonsey87 said:
Hey everyone!! New to marine tanks and trying to understand/work out kinks. My question is about my refugium. I'm currently running a HOB I made from an Aquaclear 110. Just running chaeto with a few dosings of copepods. I noticed today that there's numerous of these clear floating things. I am wondering what they are. Are they bad? Are they good? Should I do something and if so then what? Apologies if this has been asked before. I tried searching but couldn't find much. Thanks!!!

Do you have a light source for your fuge?

UMALUM · Oct 7, 2023

Lavey29 said:
My chaeto doesn't tumble at all and I cut football size pieces off it each week. Grows like a weed.

Haha I couldn't grow the stuff if I tried. I was under the impression that some kind of flow or movement was needed to keep it healthy.

Lavey29 · Oct 7, 2023

UMALUM said:
Haha I couldn't grow the stuff if I tried. I was under the impression that some kind of flow or movement was needed to keep it healthy.

In a perfect set up, yes it should have flow and make these nice little circular rotation like some videos show but it typically ain't happening in your standard sump set up. I hand rotate it weekly. What really ignited my chaeto growth was the neptune gro light.

Jonsey87 · Oct 10, 2023

UMALUM said:
It could be early signs of die off. Are you making sure the chaeto is constantly tumbling and on the move? My apologies if you are but from the picture it looks rather unhealthy and stagnant.

It usually tumbles, yes. At that time it had stopped tumbling, I pulled about half of it off and returned it to the fudge, tumbles fine again but still seeing stuff on the surface.