Melev's bulb not working well with cheato

[carlos_fb]

I setup a fuge in my sump about 3 months ago with Melev's bulb and a ball of cheato. I keep it in a reverse photo period of 12 hours and even though the cheato looks healthy, it's not growing. I tried getting the bulb closer to the water surface but that didn't help, I also tried leaving it on 24/7 without success.

Is there any other bulb that can try?

 

[megaspoot]

Any of the high temp color fluorescent should work. 6500K IME. What is your nitrate and phosphate numbers?

 

[graveyardworm]

How deep is the compartment in the sump, how much flow, and which Melev bulb? Chaeto needs fairly strong flow to be healthy IMO, and the more light the better. The spotlight bulb Melev recommends should be plenty of light in a shallow tank with the chaeto near the surface.

This is with the sps tank? In that case I'm guessing very low nutrient levels. Perhaps your problem is low nutrient levels.

 

[BONDQ]

I agree that water flow is very important to having cheato grow quickly.

 

[carlos_fb]

Hey thanks for your replies. My nitrates and phosphates are at 0.

The compartment in the sump is about 8" deep and I have about 600 gph going through it.

It is a sps tank with pretty low bioload, at this time I only have 4 small fishes and some inverts.

Here's a picture:

 

[megaspoot]

the zero nitrate and phosphate might explain it.

 

[graveyardworm]

Why are you trying to grow cheato if your bioload is low and available nutrients are almost non existent?

 

[carlos_fb]

First, because I have some hair algae in the display tank and second, because my pH is dropping a lot at night and I wanted to see if a fuge with a reverse photo period would help with that.

 

[Triterium]

No growth is not a bad thing.

Chaeto grows very well in low flow as well.