Cheato help!

Cheato help!

Tigé21v said:
How's the corals looking? Are you getting any cyano from the nitrogen limitation?
You may want to dose some nitrate if decreasing the biopellets doesn't work. I think i read somewhere that at less than .03, Seakleer won't pull out much in the way of phosphates, but starts to precipitate out your alk.
Click to expand...



Corals look really happy. Full PE on the SPS, the LPS look good and so do the zoas. Now it has only been a month so time will tell what will happen and how happy everything will be.

I really don't want to add any more complexity to the system. I'm gone from home often so there is no way for me to dose regularly unless I add a dosing pump. Yet another thing that can and will break...

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Pife said:
Why not take most of the cheato out?
Click to expand...
Instead of taking the cheato out, what you need to do is leave it, and alter the hours the light is on the cheato.. Not remove it! The massive amount of cheato will allow, when it does extract, too extract a larger amount than a small ball..

You don't only get nutrient export when it's growing.. You can control the amount of export by limiting light hours much more easily.. And the cheato will not die..

Is very flexible..

You can also take out a few pellets, but only a few at a time, so you can monitor its effects (if you have a recirc reactor, you could simply limit the flow through the reactor)..

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DamonG said:
Instead of taking the cheato out, what you need to do is leave it, and alter the hours the light is on the cheato.. Not remove it! The massive amount of cheato will allow, when it does extract, too extract a larger amount than a small ball..

You don't only get nutrient export when it's growing.. You can control the amount of export by limiting light hours much more easily.. And the cheato will not die..

Is very flexible..

You can also take out a few pellets, but only a few at a time, so you can monitor its effects (if you have a recirc reactor, you could simply limit the flow through the reactor)..

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I take out 5 gallons worth and leave 1 gallon tobregrow almost on a weekly basis. It gets so thick that it gets too close to the lights and starts bleaching. The nutrient exporting is definitely happening and it's working really well.

I think the limiting factor in the P04 reduction is that the N03 is 0.00. It's not balanced. If I could bring my N03 up just slightly then the P04 would fall. At least that's the theory.
 
Schplitter said:
I take out 5 gallons worth and leave 1 gallon tobregrow almost on a weekly basis. It gets so thick that it gets too close to the lights and starts bleaching. The nutrient exporting is definitely happening and it's working really well.

I think the limiting factor in the P04 reduction is that the N03 is 0.00. It's not balanced. If I could bring my N03 up just slightly then the P04 would fall. At least that's the theory.
Click to expand...


Can you save me your next clean out?
 
Haha well I'll be in Vegas this afternoon but they may question me bringing it on the plane haha


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N03: 0.0
P04: 0.04

Making progress with the P04. I took out more bio pellets to see if I can find the sweet spot. Cheato grows like crazy still. I took out another 5 gallon bucket full a few minutes ago. The coral and fish look happy.


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Pife said:
We're all from the Saint Louis MO area. Hence the local group! But if you want to ship it.... Lol.
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I agree with you 100%. CFL bulbs are useless. More powerful lighting is the key to grow this stuff and see a difference in nutrient absorption.


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Tigé21v said:
Do you have any nuisance algae anywhere in the system? How often are you needing to clean your glass?
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No nuisance algae.

Before the change I clean the glass every 3 days. When I did my entire tank would be filled with a cloud of dust for about 30 minutes. The skimmer would need emptying the next day.

Now I clean the glass every 10-12 days. When I do it's really nothing but algae in those deep scratches and a few patches of fine algae. The last time I cleaned I thought my kids got their little dirty hands on the tank. It's really not bad. The skimmer is also not producing much skimmate at all. I thought something was wrong with it but after cleaning it's still the same story.
 
Interesting find...

I noticed after the last pruning the cheato was not growing at the same incredible rate it usually grows. Looked every day but didn't tinker with anything. Tested Wednesday and got a reading of .06 P04. That concerned me as I just had a reading of .04. I still didn't tinker with anything but I did test N03. It's still 0.0. I left it alone until today when I tested the water again. P04 is at .08 and N03 is at 0.0 still.

Now I was worried as the cheato was not growing like usual and the P04 was going up. So I looked and looked until I discovered that I powered one of the Pharos LED fixtures off when I was doing maintenance on Sunday. :facepalm: I powered it up today. I'll report back with the growth and readings next week. Looks like BRS thinks the same I do. You have to flood this stuff with ligh to make it effective.
 
You might very well be NO3 limited as well.

If you dont see any improvement with the additional light being on, consider dosing KNO3 to your system.
 
maxxII said:
You might very well be NO3 limited as well.

If you dont see any improvement with the additional light being on, consider dosing KNO3 to your system.
Click to expand...

Yes sir. I was working on removing some of the biopellets to combat this issue when the light mishap occurred. I'll hold off on removing more until I see if the light being back on fixes the P04 number.
 
Schplitter said:
Interesting find...

I noticed after the last pruning the cheato was not growing at the same incredible rate it usually grows. Looked every day but didn't tinker with anything. Tested Wednesday and got a reading of .06 P04. That concerned me as I just had a reading of .04. I still didn't tinker with anything but I did test N03. It's still 0.0. I left it alone until today when I tested the water again. P04 is at .08 and N03 is at 0.0 still.

Now I was worried as the cheato was not growing like usual and the P04 was going up. So I looked and looked until I discovered that I powered one of the Pharos LED fixtures off when I was doing maintenance on Sunday. :facepalm: I powered it up today. I'll report back with the growth and readings next week. Looks like BRS thinks the same I do. You have to flood this stuff with ligh to make it effective.
Click to expand...
Kind of yes, and kind of no with the flooding.. You will get diminishing returns(trust me) at a certain point.. And you will have to take it a step further after a while in a different way..

It's a balancing act honestly, and simple, but not as simple as just throwing an overly high powered light on the algea.. Nothing is that simple(i found out the hard way)..

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Tigé21v said:
If your nitrates are still hitting 0.0, you must still be getting some growth?
Click to expand...

Yes some but not nearly what I got before. I would say I got less than half of the growth. I do still have biopellets so they are probably taking up the slack with the N03 but they can't do much about P04 if anything.

I'm not too worried about it. I bet by next weekend I'll have a sump full now that the light is back on. This is a good way of seeing if that growth is truly taking up the P04 liken I think it is.
 
DamonG said:
Kind of yes, and kind of no with the flooding.. You will get diminishing returns(trust me) at a certain point.. And you will have to take it a step further after a while in a different way..

It's a balancing act honestly, and simple, but not as simple as just throwing an overly high powered light on the algea.. Nothing is that simple(i found out the hard way)..

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Nothing is ever simple or easy in this hobby. I'm hoping to find the natural balance instead of hitting it with more chemicals.
 
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