Problems with Chaeto as export

lukinrats

Premium Member
Ok... I think that I may have some idea about the answers that I will get, but I just want to ask some questions, and see if I can remedy my problem

I have a tank that is about 4-4.5 years old now, but there is a catch to that... I have taken it down and moved it twice, in the last couple of years... We moved at the beginning of 2007.. the tank was set up from January until September... We eventually decided to get new carpet and furniture, so I had to take it down... Took it down, and while I was waiting, I had a skimmer and sump built to my specs... Also I drilled the tank, etc... In the meantime everything was housed in a 55 gallon rubbermaid container, and it all did surprisingly well... So, I put the tank back up like it was before, except for the substrate which was completely changed out... I only kept a few cups of the old to seed it with + live rock... It has been up and running now for about 1 month +/- a week or so... I am just now starting to show some N and P in my tests, and there is more P than N... My chaeto is not growing at all, and is a dark green color, but not dead... I am using the light that is recommended on melevsreef.com ... So I am using GFO to control the P, but I am wondering if I should be or not... I am thinking the macros are limited by N at this point, and will not be removing any P until I can get it balanced out... So the question might read: Should I use GFO to control P right now, and essentially keep starving the macros, or should I try to dose some iron to see if that is the problem

I can test for iron, but I have no idea where that should be... Any advice here?

Also, most of my overflow goes to the skimmer section in my sump, and then whatever does not is routed to the fuge... So should I also send the skimmed water over to the fuge first?
 
ok... I decided to just do a test for iron... My kit tests for non-chelated (toxic), and chelated (non toxic)... 1st the good part! I have no toxic iron... The bad part is that I show no iron at all... I am having some trouble with sps frags, so now I am wondering whether or not iron deficiency is related to that... First I thought I had put them in too much light, so I got the same frags from the same person... These new frags are starting to show the same signs... I have them at the sandbed in the hopes that I could slowly move them up, and have more success that way.

I think I need some iron for my chaeto, but does anyone think that it could be my problem with the SPs? All other corals and animals are thriving... My water is perfect by all other standards and I have about 5500 GPH of flow in a 75
 
I really, really don't do well with acronyms. The most i've figured out is nitrates and phosphates. Tell us about the livestock in your tank maybe so we know what you have in there, feeding schedule, other paramters? and whats gfo?
 
75 gallon w/ 20+ gallon sump/fuge
Orca custom recirculating skimmer w/ 2 aquabee's
Plenty of mature coralline encrusted live rock
Fresh DSB seeded with the substrate that it replaced

Corals are: Anthilia, Ricordia, Clove polyps, Kenya, Fuzzy sinularia, yellow suncoral, Orange Digi, Montipora spongodes, Green birdsnest, Neon green cap

Fish are: Lemon peel angel, Red spot blenny, Tomato clown, False percula Clown, Kole's Tang

Inverts: Various snails, and hermits... Rose Bubble tip anemone, 2 x skunk cleaner shrimp

I feed the fish twice daily (brine, krill, mysis, cyclops, plankton, Julian sprung's vegi food, also some vegi flakes, nori)
I feed coral food every other day (cyclops, coral frenzy, reef chilli, and Marine snow, + a little amino's)

Parameters are as follows:
sg-1.026 or 35 ppt
temp: 79
Ca- 430
Dkh- 8- 8.5
N- 5 mg/l
p- .25 mg/l
Mag- 1300 on the money
PH- 8.1 - 8.2
Free (non-chelated) Iron- 0
Chelated iron- 0

GFO is granular ferric oxide, or AKA phosban

Flow is: 2 x maxi mods @ 2100 GPH each, and 1 x Vortech set @ about 2500 GPH, and getting around 4-500 GPH from my return lines

That is about all I can think of right now, hope that is sufficient

Thanks,
Nathan
 
The type of Chaetomorpha used in the hobby grows well for some people and not for others. In the wild its a drift algae growing in shallow, eutrophic areas. Higher light levels and more water movement may encourage it to grow faster - or may encourage epiphytic algae to grow on it.

I think that its typical for iron to be at lower levels in reef tanks than NSW unless it is supplemented. RH Farley wrote a couple of articles on iron for Reefkeeping magazine, those would be a good source of information. Small, routine doses of iron chelate may encourage your Chaeto to grow better. I've used Kent's brand of iron chelate, which also has Molybdenum, in a stony coral tank and never noticed any problems. Iron will be chelated rapidly so I don't think that there is much chance of iron sulfate being in your tank and not much point in testing for it. I would be cautious about how much iron you dose, and would not raise the levels much higher than NSW levels.

I don't know how iron limitation affects coral. Most people keeping stony coral tanks probably don't dose iron.
 
If the purpose of growing Chaeto is to reduce tank nutrients than it seems to me to be at cross purposes to stop using GFO. IMO the best case scenario is phospate limitation, and I doubt most reef tanks achieve that.
 
Thanks piercho... I have read the article by Holmes-Farley, which is where I got the idea of the macros possibly being limited by this, and therefore not growing enough to scrub N and P
 
N- 5 mg/l
p- .25 mg/l


If you wrote your numbers down correctly then you have higher Nitrates than Phosphates. That's at odds with what you said so clarification is in order.

If the numbers are right then you don't want GFO because useing it could limit your chaeto's growth and export ability.
 
5 mg/L is a reasonable reading for nitrate, and a reasonable reading for a reef tank, although I like nitrate undetectable on a test kit for a stony coral tank. Still, with that much nitrate I would think that you would see better Chaeto growth. You *might* get a more accurate reading using a low-range nitrate kit. Your inorganic N:p is 20. If I was tinkering with N:p I would shoot for a ratio of 35 or higher, myself. In other words orthophosphate in your tank is too high in ratio to nitrate, and I would continue to run GFO to try and bring phosphate down. But I don't tinker with N:p, and don't have that much faith in kits to test for nitrate or phosphate in low ranges. Plus, a lot of phosphate exists floating around as complex organic molecules that a phosphate test kit does not read. Plants can make use of this organic phosphate under some circumstances as well. So, I still maintain you've got plenty-o-phosphate to grow your Chaeto.
 
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