chaeto acts as a nutrient trap

[Kinetic]

So I've finally figured out where all my phosphates are coming from, the very thing that is trying to help the algae outbreak, my chaeto!

I used to rinse it out every week when I did water changes in the water I had just siphoned out, but I stopped doing that, and I've had crappy water params ever since. I rinsed out my chaeto and holy crap, not only did a million mini stars and baby trochus/cerith snails fall out, but tons of nasty poop.

Either I have it packed in way too much, or I'm going to have to rinse it a lot. Problem is, I'm afraid to basically wipe out my pod population when I do this.

What do you guys do in terms of your chaeto?

 

[hiepatitis]

i had a refugium with chaeto but i had the water run through a few filter socks before it reached the chaeto. i had to rinse the sock maybe once every two weeks otherwise it would clog up with crap. maybe if you use some type of filter media it will prevent the chaeto from collecting filth

 

[mobert]

I'd been battling a high nitrate problem for many months. I just figured out that I have to harvest really often. I used to let it grow and pack up in my sump. Now I harvest whenever there are not open spaces in the Chaeto. No more light green chaeto that have grown out of the water. All is dark green thin layer with water circulating around. I also added a clump in the display and it grows astoundingly fast there. Looks ugly but my nitrates went from 45 down to under ten. I have a bare bottom tank so I also added a couple of inch of sand in the sump, a filter sock and do very wet protein skimming. I don't know what I did that helped the most but there is a lot more chaeto being pulled out than there used to be. Randy says Chaeto is good because it pulls out both nitrates and phosphates whereas I think the sandbed and sock might only help with nitrates.

So I think, harvest more often and pull out the funkiest looking Chaeto when you do. I used to put the harvested Chaeto in a container with a quarter inch of water so the pods could travel down and be saved but now I think there are plenty of pods left behind and don't bother trying to save any.

 

[tuberider]

I keep my wad small (that sounds great...), and let tumble like a tumbleweed in the current.

 

[JHipkin]

This is really interesting. I am having hair algea problems in my nano tank. Perhaps ovber stuffed cheato in the second compartment is the problem. There are filter pads in the first compartment so the water, by the time ut gets to the cheato, is relatively free of junk. I will try and harvest the cheato more frequently and see if that helps.

 

[jedininja]

Do you wash out your filter pad frequently?

 

[JHipkin]

I remove the top one weekly and add a new one to the bottom of the stack of three.

 

[-=Zepplock=-]

I have no chaeto at all ;-)
And I run skimmer 1 hour a day.
And I have no algae.

And my Xenia grows like mad ;-)

 

[jedininja]

JH, I would rinse out all the filter pads more often than that. those sponges accumulate a lot of detritus.

 

[Kinetic]

even with the sponges, I'm pretty sure your chaeto will still collect some junk. try rinsing it out in your water changes.

 

[Kinetic]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8365235#post8365235 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by -=Zepplock=-
I have no chaeto at all ;-)
And I run skimmer 1 hour a day.
And I have no algae.

And my Xenia grows like mad ;-)

showoff!

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8365235#post8365235 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by -=Zepplock=-
I have no chaeto at all ;-)
And I run skimmer 1 hour a day.
And I have no algae.

And my Xenia grows like mad ;-)

Of course your xenia is growing like mad, they like a dirty tank. Xenia are considered good nutrient exporters, bested of course by skimmer and macro algae, but still very good exporters in their own right. There was a study some time ago using xenia in a sump/fuge to export nutrients, but they couldn't compete with macros for efficiency.

 

[JHipkin]

The pads aren't sponges. They are made from the cut-it-yourself filter material. That said, I will try rinsing them out mid week in addition to throwing away the top pad and rinsing the cheato each week. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[jedininja]

Yeah it would be best to rinse them out mid week. Anything tht traps detritus add a lot of nitrates to our tanks because they are out of the water column where they can be consumed dy detrivores and in a spot where they break down into nitrates. So its best to clean them out so the detritus doesnt have a chance to break down. I rinse out my filter sock twice a week. And I am always amazed at how much brown water comes out only after 3 or 4 days.

 

[-=Zepplock=-]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8365750#post8365750 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sparkss
Of course your xenia is growing like mad, they like a dirty tank. Xenia are considered good nutrient exporters, bested of course by skimmer and macro algae, but still very good exporters in their own right. There was a study some time ago using xenia in a sump/fuge to export nutrients, but they couldn't compete with macros for efficiency.

I tried adding chaeto to my tank - didn't grow that well.
But another 10g tank here produced huge amounts of chaeto ;-)