cheato not growing in my sump

[maymond]

My tank is about 3 months old. I have a couple of hand full of cheato in my sump that has not grown at all. Is this normal. My sump is a 30 gallon tank with about 20 gallons water. I have a fluval led 18" light strip. Its a 7500k. Is the light my problem?

 

[krakenster]

chaeto needs the following to grow:
1) Nutrients
2) decent flow
3) lights, plenty of them, try 2700k or lights in the red spectrum

Do you have competing items in your tank for the nutrients? like rowas, biopellets?

 

[DrewBrees713]

I put tons of light on my chaeto and it turn from a tiny golf ball into a giant snowball.

 

[pkirby]

I had a recently set up tank, added chaeto to the sump... It browned and died... 6 months later with nothing else changed, i added some again and it grew great. I think I was just too low of nutrients at the time.

I used 4-3w LEDs with 40 degree lenses on them. It was actually a moonlight kit from rapid led... I simply asked them to swap the blue for warm and cool white LEDs and added optics

 

[nynick]

Could be many different things but the light would be my first guess. I run one of those energy saver daylight bulbs (5100k, 75w with the effect of 160 ...or something) that you can buy at Home Depot. They grow Chaeto like mad. Not familiar with what 7100k would do for algae growth but the general recommendations are daylight or red.

More is more for Chaeto. It would be near impossible to get too much light on it. I have a tuft growing roughly an inch away from the bulb (washed over by water but basically exposed to the air) close enough that you burn your hand if you keep it there too long.

 

[fletch999]

I would change the bulb as stated and probably not enough nutrients, mine did this for a while and now it grows