RobbyG
Active member
I am by no means an expert but I wanted to share an observation that I made in case some of you want to carry it to the next level.
I have a 30 gal sump that is lit up at night by 100 Watt energy bulb, it offsets the pH drop at night and for the last 9 months has worked very well. The Sump itself was covered in Caulerpa from the very start, I would estimate that by weight it would at least be half a pound or enough to fill about 4 coffee cups if packed into them. My pH with this setup was between 8.20 in the Daytime to a low of about 8.10 at 9am in the morning.
About 3 months ago I added Cheato to the sump, this did not really change anything in terms of pH but my plan was to slowly eliminate the Caulerpa as the Cheato grew. After about 10 weeks the Cheato had reached a weight of about 1lb or enough to fill about 5 coffee mugs.
Then 3 weeks ago I put a flower pot coral in my sump to make some space temporarily in the tank. In about 3 days my Caulerpa started to die, evidently by some toxin released by the Flower Pot. I removed the Flower pot coral and trimmed out all dead and dying Caulerpa but within 2 more days about 95% of the Caulerpa had to be removed because it was starting to die. The Cheato was totaly unaffected by the toxins and even seemed to grow a little faster.
Since the Caulepa died my pH in the day is always climbing in the day, but it can't get past 8.15 while at night it now drops down to 7.85 this is of course very alarming but I have now realized the Cheato seems to have very little ability to raise pH while Caulerpa seems to be an excellent at increasing pH.
Has anyone ever noticed this before?
I have a 30 gal sump that is lit up at night by 100 Watt energy bulb, it offsets the pH drop at night and for the last 9 months has worked very well. The Sump itself was covered in Caulerpa from the very start, I would estimate that by weight it would at least be half a pound or enough to fill about 4 coffee cups if packed into them. My pH with this setup was between 8.20 in the Daytime to a low of about 8.10 at 9am in the morning.
About 3 months ago I added Cheato to the sump, this did not really change anything in terms of pH but my plan was to slowly eliminate the Caulerpa as the Cheato grew. After about 10 weeks the Cheato had reached a weight of about 1lb or enough to fill about 5 coffee mugs.
Then 3 weeks ago I put a flower pot coral in my sump to make some space temporarily in the tank. In about 3 days my Caulerpa started to die, evidently by some toxin released by the Flower Pot. I removed the Flower pot coral and trimmed out all dead and dying Caulerpa but within 2 more days about 95% of the Caulerpa had to be removed because it was starting to die. The Cheato was totaly unaffected by the toxins and even seemed to grow a little faster.
Since the Caulepa died my pH in the day is always climbing in the day, but it can't get past 8.15 while at night it now drops down to 7.85 this is of course very alarming but I have now realized the Cheato seems to have very little ability to raise pH while Caulerpa seems to be an excellent at increasing pH.
Has anyone ever noticed this before?
CaptiveReef
