help with macro growth

[soulbabel]

Things I've done to get my chaeto growing

Things I've done to get my chaeto growing

My initial batch of chaeto I ordered online and received 3 days later in the mail. That batch melted away, because it was in the mail during the summer heatwave and probably died on its way to me.

I didn't want to try that again this summer, so I made sure to find a local source for my chaeto. I received two clumps, from two different people. They didn't do too well when I first added them to my refugium, they had alot of shedding. However, there's nothing in my tank, except for base rock, so its pretty sterile and lacks a natural source to nourish the chaeto. So I did two things:

1. I added a Hagen Nutrafin CO2 reactor (although, I've heard that macroalgae gets its carbon from something else in reef tanks, so I don't know how necessary this is)
2. I added AqSafe Aquatic Tabs. It's a fertilizer for pond plants, but doesn't have any copper that other types of fertilizers seem to have.

It will be awhile before I add any livestock, but my chaeto has gone from shedding, to becoming a more dense clump. I'm finally starting to see the clump actually gain in size, so things are going good so far. If you already have lifestock, I would try my solutions vary sparingly, or perhaps, try and grow the chaeto out in a separate aquarium or bucket with a powerhead to provide flow. Then add the chaeto to your fuge after it looks healthy again.

I've only been doing this the last two weeks, so I don't know how successful my method is yet, perhaps I can give an update after more time has passed, that is, if anyone's interested.

 

[chris melb]

I have managed to get my cheato to grow, for me the tumble and high flow made it grow i harvested 70% of it and placed it in another tank with high flow, and it didnt grow, i tested and had N03 and PO4 above the levels in the previous tank in which it was growing orginally. The temp was 5 degrees celcuis less though, so the next week i uped the temp to 25 degress celcuis, and a week and a half later still showed no growth. Iron was also dosed daily. Ive now done a 70% water change to see if that helps the cheato grow.

I notice that when in the first tank when the cheato started to grow it really clumped up may have been because of the tumbling motion. This second tank has the cheato in the same amount of flow, but it doesnt tumble it spins. Im going to wait a few more weeks to see if it starts growing due to the water change, and if not i will change the flow creating a tumble flow vs a spin flow see if that makes a difference.

Apart from the different movement (tumble Vs spin), my other guess could be that the N03 and P04 were possibly too high, although i couldnt see any hair algae, there may have been some ephiytes growing on my cheato slowing posibly stopping it from growing, it never started shedding and remained green but never grew despite a higher level of N03 and P04 then the tank it was previously in.