My chaeto

[UnusualSuspect]

I have a pitiful little ball of chaeto in my fuge, smaller than a golf ball, that doesn't seem to want to grow. There's nothing else in the system sucking up the nutrients, so that's not the limiting factor.

So ... The other day I was doing some work in the fuge & a few pieces of chaeto escaped into the display tank and got stuck in the grill on my MP10. Long story short, the little bits of chaeto that made it into the display tank grew like crazy! A half-inch bit of chaeto grew to over six inches in two days.

So, I gotta think it was responding to the light. Light in the display tank is a DIY RapidLED rig with CW and RB. The fuge light is an 18W 6700K CF bulb.

Do you think the chaeto that went crazy was responding to more light, or a different color light? Would it help to put a 50/50 bulb over the fuge, or better to up the wattage?

Thoughts?

 

[manvsfish]

How's your chaeto setup in sump? I had the same problem when I first put in my sump. I had it in a little space off to the side. It needs a lot of space. I moved to a bigger space in sump and I would once or twice a day rotate making sure that the ball would get the same amount of light. I've read were you want to get a tumbling effect going. Plus I have a little out of the water. If it's deep in the sump I would move to surface. I just have a little 50w bulb from HD. It's doubled in the last 2 weeks. I found that if you move and mess with it instead of just leaving it alone it does better.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Lighting effects on growth usually reflect more light of the colors it prefers. Organisms normally do grow based on the color, but simply the amount of light in appropriate colors. Other colors just are less efficient or even wasted, but do not generally make an organism grow more slowly.

That said, growth may relate to flow and other issues as well.

 

[UnusualSuspect]

I guess the other wild-card I hadn't considered would be flow. I'll play with that.

 

[mess7777]

I have mine in my fuge, and not seeing a lot of growth either. I am using a CF cool white light. It seems to collect a lot of gunk in it, almost more of a filter than anything!