Cheato Cleaning??

[CKreef]

I have noticed a lot of detritus building up in my cheato. Does anyone ever clean their cheato? If so how? Thanks Chris

 

[musicman]

When I had a tank and was running cheato (great stuff, I might add!) I did my culling and leaning of cheato when I did my water changes. I kept the old water in a bucket, and simply vigorously shook out the cheato in this before I dumped the old water. That way you don't re-release all that poop in the tank.

Best of luck and have fun!

 

[Mikeyjer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11451113#post11451113 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by musicman
When I had a tank and was running cheato (great stuff, I might add!) I did my culling and leaning of cheato when I did my water changes. I kept the old water in a bucket, and simply vigorously shook out the cheato in this before I dumped the old water. That way you don't re-release all that poop in the tank.

Best of luck and have fun!

That's exactly what I do when I do water changes......

 

[NeveSSL]

That is exactly what I'm going to START doing.

Brandon

 

[H@rry]

Don't you lose a lot of pods, worms, and starfish doing that?

 

[NeveSSL]

Hmmm... thats a pretty good point. I would think pods more than anything, tho.

I guess I may give it a try and just see what all comes out. Just catch back what I want to keep.

Brandon

 

[musicman]

Well yea, but everything's a trade off. You lose tons of pods, etc when you toss out a lump of cheato, too. I kept about 2" of 1-2" jagged rocks in an area of my fuge, and there were always PLENTY of pods to feed whatever was in my tank. Losing 2-3% by cleaning out my cheato didn't really bother me.

 

[rsteagall]

When trimming my cheato... I pick out every single pod by hand.

Just kidding :O

I do however try to pick out every micro serpent star and throw it back in my tank I started with like 5 stars that I got from fishdoc about 2 years ago. No telling how many I have now.... but its a bunch. I like those little things. And lord knows I have enough hair algae for them to live in!

 

[Mikeyjer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11453726#post11453726 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by H@rry
Don't you lose a lot of pods, worms, and starfish doing that?

You rather have a dirty ball of chaeto where your phosphates builds up or you want a clean chaeto where's there's no detritus on it? That's the way you have to look at it.