need lighting suggestions for Fuge

[pufferpoison]

Well last time I was in this game, I grew cheato like it was going out of style in my fuge. Now it doesn't seem to be growing like it use to and I'm using the same type of lighting and my other macro doesn't look great either.

Here's what I have: a 30 gallon sump with about 15 gallons dedicated to the fuge, it's a BB with about 6 inches of live rock and then I have 2 different strains of cheato (one's small the other is like big fat spaghetti), some dragons tongue and some other stuff that was given to me that was called "dragon's breathe" but I haven't seen it listed anywhere else under that name.

Anyway none of my cheato is really taking off. In fact, some of the red stuff is actually looking white.

I am using a 100W CF bulb in the 5K spectrum and as you can see from the pictures, it's pretty close to the water, in fact I've moved it closer 2 days ago and things actually look worse. Any suggestions?

 

[houstonhobby]

Chaeto doesn't grow that great for me. What does grow really well is green bubble caulerpa. Some people seem to be against it but I have never had a problem with it, nor heard of anybody having one.

What you need for nutrient uptake is fast growth. GBC gives me that. Plus, if you have tangs or other largish vegetarians, they will eat it up if you put some into the DT,and that will also transport some pods up there too.

Just sayin.

 

[pufferpoison]

ummm.... yeah been there and done that. I had problems last time I had tanks with that and will not be doing that again.

 

[houstonhobby]

I have bunches of it. Please tell me what happened. Did it go sexual on you? I know this can happen, and have had it happen with some other macro-algae (which at the time I was using as a decoration).

Just want to know what I can expect.

 

[pufferpoison]

It took over and got everywhere in my DT and finally went white and went asexual.

 

[houstonhobby]

I'm not too worried about It taking over the DT, my hippo tang and flame angel would never let that happen. Going sexual...that would be a severe crisis. Thanks for the warning. I will try to concentrate more on chaeto growth.

 

[Secondsbest]

My fuge does pretty well under a single 23w cfl (100w equivalent). It's a ~6000k spectrum daylight bulb for residential use. Yours seems to be pretty bright. Sure you aren't nutrient limited

 

[Sammykonga]

I use a Wavepoint LED light and LOVE it. It does a fantastic job and I even have grown some coraline algae as well. Look it up.

 

[tektite]

Getting a bluer bulb than 5K will help a little, but from the pics and description it sounds like the algae is lacking something other than light. Nitrate, phosphate, iron maybe.

The other algae looks like a type of red gracilaria.