I find that hard to believe. All a turf algae scrubber does is provide an environment that is more hospitable to the nuisance algae that would normally grow in the display tank. It's not growing some special kind of "scrubber" algae. That tank has something else going on. If you have not addressed the excess nutrients, it will be full of algae again soon enough.
A decently strong powerhead helps. Without sufficient flow stuff gets caught in it. With GHA, I try to periodically deep clean my refugium section to keep it from taking over.
I would wait until you have an established nutrient level and as far as a light, I would recommend tunze eco chic refugium light as seen in the picture. I was originally having the same issue with keeping cheato. Until now.
I still want to increase the flow to help the cheato stop collecting detritus.
I was thinking of giving a different algae a try and then putting in an air line with now stone. Maybe I need more movement. I have a high phos now still but been dosing nopox cause nothing would work
I would suggest cutting back on the amount your feeding. but an air stone is a good idea to get more movement in that area. since I started with the light thhe algea is doing amazing. Started out with a ball the size of a golfball now its the size of 2 soft balls and has only been a few weeks I may have to start harvesting it. I would alo not recommend trying any other type of algea other than cheato, I did and it was a desaster it made a mess of my tank. Sump and display. grows way to fast and when it dies it caused a milky look to the water.
That's what I'm hoping and what seems to be happening for me. I just installed an ATS a few weeks ago. I was having a bad cyano bloom. A few extra water changes and the ATS are slowly clearing it up. I was doing chaeto because that's what i did back in the day but it would grow well for a while and then start dying. My tank is finally starting to come around.
when you have sponges feather duster worms, microalgae with lps sps and softies, you get a true mixed reefI have a high nutrient tank by design so almost all macroalgae are my friend. Not only do they take up nutrients for my 56 gallon display tank with 10 fish plus inverts, but they beautify the scape adding color and texture. In this pic you can see codium, ulva,cheato, caulerpa cupressoides, red moss ball and red titan. I have a small amount of Coraline algae but use less calcium and alkalinity to limit it's growth on my gyre and pumps. I also feed phyto to help increase the pod population.
I just absolutely love your display tank with sump and controllers set up. That is a work of art. I keep my macro in an ugly 55 gallon drum that's plumbed to my sump in my basement. Works ok but is really ugly.
do tangs eat Caulerpa or any other CUC? Hmmm I need nutrient control and want to introduce macro algae to my sump and then feed by blue and yellow tang with the goodies. I would love some in my DT also b/c it looks FANTASTIC! but agree it can overwhelm the tank....
I would suggest getting cheato it's not as invasive but tangs may eat it I know tangs love cheato and it grows like crazy. Now I have to harvest ever month and now my nutrients are running low that I now have to dose nitro and phos
