Growing everything except the chaeto!?!?!

[Minkus19]

Hey all, new to both the forum and reef tanks. Long story short, ‘rescued’ a 125gal tank from someone with some rock, sand, livestock. Person was running an fluval fx6 as his only means of filtration. Got everything home and running and put the fish into a tank transfer/quarantine cycle for ich. While the fish where out of the display tank I drilled it and plumbed in a sump (20 long currently). Have the fx6 still running as primary filtration in the sump as well as a protein skimmer in the first section. Chaeto with Túnez eco-chic 8831 mounted below the water surface, and a 300w heater in the middle section(about 14 inches long so lots of space), and then a return section.

My issue is all types of algea is growing both in my display tank and my sump, but the chaeto is not?! My nitrates are between 40-60ppm and I’m sure my phosphate is likely high as well (don’t currently have a test for it). My fuge light is currently on for 8hours a day at night. I am cleaning Sheets of algea off my display tank glass a couple times a week (my turbo snails and urchin aren’t even close to keeping up) and my chaeto ball now looks like a really poorly made wig of hair algea.
What am I missing here? From what I have read my chaeto should be going crazy with my parameters, I have even tried dosing with some cheato-gro to see if that helps, but to no avail.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I know the nuisance algea is not starving out the cheato as my nitrate numbers or still high. The cheato has good flow and even tumbles thanks to the outflow of the FX6 being in that section, and it overall looks decently healthy (dark green and solid not mushy), but it just won’t grow.

Thanks in advance all.

 

[Spare time]

What all do you dose? If the chaeto is still alive, you may want to consider dosing trace elements.

 

[Lavey29]

Even though you transferred over chaeto is tuff to grow in new tanks till about 6 months or later. I have had good luck with a neptune gro light and dosing chaeto gro twice a week.

 

[Minkus19]

What all do you dose? If the chaeto is still alive, you may want to consider dosing trace elements.

I am lightly dosing cheato grow and nopox trying to tackle 2 problems at the same time. Neither Spears’s to be doing much at the moment (though the nopox is causing my skimmer to go crazy so I’m assuming it’s helping some, just not a noticeable amount yet).

 

[Minkus19]

Even though you transferred over chaeto is tuff to grow in new tanks till about 6 months or later. I have had good luck with a neptune gro light and dosing chaeto gro twice a week.

Thanks, I’ll keep trying but I fear the chaeto won’t survive much longer with all the hair algea growing in it. The tank had been established for about two years when we got it, or so we were told. The only thing new in the tank was the water haha. Even had the issues of moving an established tank (ammonia spiking after restart due to sand disturbance, etc). Ammonia and nitrite are ready zeros but yeah the nitrate is through the roof (hit a high of over 200ppm at one point). Water changes have helped bring it down, but having trouble getting it much lower.

 

[Lavey29]

Thanks, I’ll keep trying but I fear the chaeto won’t survive much longer with all the hair algea growing in it. The tank had been established for about two years when we got it, or so we were told. The only thing new in the tank was the water haha. Even had the issues of moving an established tank (ammonia spiking after restart due to sand disturbance, etc). Ammonia and nitrite are ready zeros but yeah the nitrate is through the roof (hit a high of over 200ppm at one point). Water changes have helped bring it down, but having trouble getting it much lower.

Oh ok well 2 years should be growing chaeto fine then. Get an ICP to check your trace elements. I had a lot of different algae in my fuge when it first started. Manual removal and added some trochus snails to the fuge. I run my light 12 hours opposite the DT. The chaeto gro dosing seemed to really help and that is basically trace elements dosing.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

Thanks, I’ll keep trying but I fear the chaeto won’t survive much longer with all the hair algea growing in it. The tank had been established for about two years when we got it, or so we were told. The only thing new in the tank was the water haha. Even had the issues of moving an established tank (ammonia spiking after restart due to sand disturbance, etc). Ammonia and nitrite are ready zeros but yeah the nitrate is through the roof (hit a high of over 200ppm at one point). Water changes have helped bring it down, but having trouble getting it much lower.

The chaeto might just be dormant from the shock of elevated nitrates. I know you are likely trying to get away with nitrate consumption via macroalgae vs water changes, but you may need to up your water changes a bit and/or wet skim to help your chaeto help you and bring the nitrates down closer to 10-20ppm
-Raven

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I have had problems keeping chaeto alive for some reason, so my macro is now caulerpa which grows like crazy! You might try removing the chaeto and adding a different macro.

Fwiw, ANY algae growing in the sump/fuge will do the same job of outcompeting algae in the display. That's why some people have algae scrubbers - to grow gha in the sump. So, if you find that something other than chaeto grows well in the fuge, just use that

 

[Minkus19]

The chaeto might just be dormant from the shock of elevated nitrates. I know you are likely trying to get away with nitrate consumption via macroalgae vs water changes, but you may need to up your water changes a bit and/or wet skim to help your chaeto help you and bring the nitrates down closer to 10-20ppm
-Raven

Yeah im upping my water changes and wet skimming, even just accidentally overdosed nopox (and caused a bacteria bloom) that is now clearing and filling my skimmer every 12 hours or so (not mad about it honestly lol). So yeah I’ll keep trying and see what happens. Of all else fails I try a different macro.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

Sea lettuce is pretty forgiving when to comes to swings and a free food source for tangs when you go to prune it back

 

[sixty_reefer]

Have you checked your phosphates yet? If the chaeto is not limited by po4 you may need a larger light to aid photosynthesis, chaeto is one of those algaes that requires a strong light to grow.