Chaeto turns purple

[tbar]

What does this mean when it's purple? I'm not rally happy with the rate of growth either. I have had it for almost a year have not seen much growth of it. I have the 6500 k daylight bulb in it's on reflector about 4" above the water in my fuge.

 

[amoreira]

Could be you have red slime algae (cyanobacteria) growing on it. If the cyano is restricted to the fuge and is not covering everything, then it's probably not a problem. Cyano in the fuge is common, since flow tends to be slower than in the DT.

As for growth, try pruning it back. If there's no room for growth, none will happen. Otherwise try adding more lighting and use a mix of actinic and daylight bulbs. Could be your water is low on nutrients (NO3), which would be inconsistent with the cyano growth.

 

[tbar]

Here is a picture. As you an see there is plenty of flow and room for growth. Anyone else think this is cyano? NO3 is about 0 Hope the pic shows up.

<IMG src="http://www1.thedwebsite.net:8080/reef/purplechaeto.jpg" height="200" width="300">

 

[tbar]

bump

 

[arts007]

Its hard to tell from the pic, kinda small, use your fingers and feel it. If its slimy then its probably cyano, if it sticks and is rough it may be coralline. Ive had cheato in the past where it wont grow and coralline will grow on it. This was because of the low nutrients in the system that it did not grow well, now I cant grow any macro algae...which is fine with me

 

[tbar]

It is slimy so It must be cyano. There is none in the DT or any algae for that matter since I got a Kole Tang. So since the cheato won't grow I probably have low nutrients, so I don't need to worry about having cheato to much correct?