Cheato Under 24/7 Lighting as Nutrient Export?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Do they just adjust to perform light cycle and dark cycle functions simultaneously?

What functions are you referring to? The observation by lots of people is that many species of macroalgae thrive under 24/7 lighting. Exactly what biochemical changes this might entail isn't clear from hobby experiments, but I will point out that many photosynthesizing organisms live in 24/7 sunlight, such as in high latitude summertime.

 

[kmckay]

Randy,

Wikipedia just answered my question. Back when I took college botany I learned about photosynthesis in two steps, the "light reactions" (electrontransport chain, etc) and the "dark reactions" (the Calvin-Benson cycle). My distinguished (ie, somewhat older) professor explained that chloroplasts conduct the light reactions on the thylakoid membrane during the day then conduct the dark cycle reactions at night. I now realize this is a dated viewpoint. The scientific community now prefers the term "light dependant reactions" and "light independent reactions." Although the older view-point still holds some credence in the case of plants in hot, arid environments who close their stomata during the day (thus inhibiting CO2 uptake and therefore the Calvin-Benson Cycle). Clearly algae don't even have stomata. My one caveat is that photosynthesis is still incompletely understood and this older view could still come back into favor as biochemical discoveries are made. No one that I know of has done a side to side comparison of 24/7 light vs 14 hour on in the setting of a refugium.

In short, sorry for the silly question.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

No problem. These forums are here for all of us to learn!

Happy Reefing.

 

[happyclam]

This is a little off topic, but I justed wanted to say that I will be adding a Tunze 9010 skimmer to my system, along with the refugium. I might run carbon, but I'm curious, is it nessesary if you have a skimmer?

 

[salty joe]

Awhile ago a guy, liveforphysics or something like that I think, posted that he found after 5-6 hours of lighting his Chaeto with 70 watts of high pressure sodium, growth dropped off dramatically. He split his Chaeto into two separate compartments and lit one for 5-6 hours, then the other for 5-6 hours. He was exporting a volley ball sized wad of chaeto weekly. If I remember correctly, his system was in the 200 gal. range.

Anyway, I'm gonna try this approach to try to squeeze every last watt as hard as I can.

 

[ludiNano]

Randy, im seting up a 29 Display, 20 L Sump, and a 5.5 hex or 10 oct Refugium. Base rock cycling now, w/ live

I was going to go bare bottom in my display and have a DSB, but, im not looking to out compete my macro.

Is it still fuctional to have say 2-3'' of sand and few live rock pieces at the bottom of your refugium?

For pods/sm. serpant stars/worms...

 

[nickterp]

When I used Chaeto for nutrient export it worked much better when I switched to a reverse photoperiod for 12 hours, as opposed to the 24 hour photoperiod. I have read that for Chaeto in particular the lack of the "dark period" will inhibit regular photosynthesis. My tank showed a pretty dramatic improvement after I switched to the 12 hour/reverse photoperiod.