Rinsing Cheato

[happyclam79]

Ok is it a good idea or bad idea to rinse cheato. When ever i do a water change I save 5 gallons of old water, take my cheato out the ref and rinse it. Then I filter that water thru a fin net and dump the cops into the display.

Is this a good idea or bad idea as far as rinsing all or any sedment out of the cheato??

 

[jimmyray]

Chaeto holds quite a bit of grunge, doesn't it? I rinse mine, I don't even bother with the net (but I usually only rinse half at a time).

I know (and I have done) some people rinse it under plain tap water. Sounds crazy, but the chaeto is resilient stuff.

 

[pjf]

I used to keep chaetomorpha in my bare bottom refugium. It grew very thick and looked like a green "Brillo" pad. It acted as a mechanical filter and trapped a lot of debris.

I rinsed it out whenever I performed a water change. There was more gunk in the chaetomorpha than in the rest of the sump/refugium.

The chaetomorpha became encrusted with red cyanobacteria, so I threw it away and replaced it with Gracilaria parvispora. This may be a mistake because the G. parvispora does not trap any debris.