Small amount of chaeto

[nereefpat]

Do pods eat chaeto? I have a new tank and dosed pods and in a short period of time I have a bazillion pods in my sump.

Sorry, I didn't see this.

No. Pods eat much smaller things, like phytoplankton, bacteria, and possibly detritus. The chaeto has lots of surface area for that stuff to stick to.

 

[JC Slater]

Thanks for your sharing :thumbsup:

I used to have a chaeto, but it died due to hair algae. I will try again but worry about parasite, bacteria ... may hitchhike. So I'm planning to dip chaeto in fresh water or medicine in few hours. Is that ok?

Thanks again

No prob! Glad I can help.

I worried about that also, BUT I have a hard time wanting to rinse or clean new chaeto. Visually as long as it looks like it doesnt have a bunch of crap in it, I just throw it in there. The guy at the LFS asked me if I wanted him to clean it out first and I said no. I wanted the pods and such that were all ready living in it. Thats how I got tons of pods in my system was from the cheato.

Anyone else have any insight on that and if dipping or cleaning the cheato is a better way to go?

 

[rjjr1963]

Hi guys,

I am running a refugium for almost 4-5 months, 1 * 1.5 *1 cubic feet, but although I have great chaeto growth, I never noticed pod population properly.

How do you know you have millions of pods populated already? I built the set up to house a mandarin but I am in dilemma now. Tank is almost 11 months old I guess.

I use a small clear plastic cup. I stir the fuge then take a small sample of the water. then I look at the cup under a magnifying glass and try to guess the number of pods in the cup. Then simply extrapolate into the water volume of the sump. Not a perfect method by far but it's the best I could come up with.

 

[rlhanks]

Ok, I've had my fudge going for years. It's ultra low flow with a minimum four inch sand bed. Theres a 6500k lamp going ten hrs a day. There's a assortment of macro growing and never is algae in the DT, except for what grows on the glass. Maybe cuz the livestock is consuming it or the fudge is handeling it, I don't know but it all works. I haven't trimmed any of the macro, it's large but not overfilled.

So the question I have is, why tumble the Chaeto? Is that why mine isn't crazy growing.