Why did my Chaeto die?

[FutureBoyGenius]

I recently added a 15Gal tal refugium onto my system for my 90Gal display. The refugium did not have anything in but a large ball of chaeto. The chaeto was healthy when I bought it from the LFS. I have had a problem with cyano and hair algea lately and my chaeto started breaking off and turning clear. Then spots of it turned red and the ball just got smaller and smaller. I was using this light on reverse cycle for about 13hours....

It is a TCP PC flood bulb that is equivalent to 75watts.

The only fluctuation that I know of during the time of death is that my tank evaporated for a few days and my salinity probably got unusually high. Would this be enough change to kill chaeto even if the salinity was high for only a couple days and then replaced with freshwater. Was this too much drastic change for it?

 

[abulgin]

Are you running a Phos reactor? If so, you need to choose between one or the other.

What temp is that bulb? If it's not 6500K or higher, that could be your problem.

 

[matt880305]

what are your parameters at if you have no nitrate or pho its not going to live. that is what it feeds off of

 

[Hop]

Could be flow, light vs. depth, too much light, too little light, too little nutrients. Too many factors to say for sure at this point.

I run two po4 reactors and a fuge and mine grows fine, although much slower than it used to. There are other factors besides po4 that help it grow.

 

[LJA]

Same exact thing happened to me, even the red growth you described. I have no explanation except I think my flow was too low and my cheato would always float on the top of the water due to this.

 

[abulgin]

Chaeto doesn't have to be sumberged to thrive, and there doesn't need to be a lot of flow through your fuge either. My floats on the top and I run about 200-250 gph through my 30 gallon fuge, and my Chaeto has gone from a softball sized ball a 8 months ago to a clump that completely fills every corner of my fuge.

The keys here are proper lighting and sufficient nutrients. You need lights in the 6,500K to 10,000K range for optimal growth, and you need enough of them to power the Chaeto. My 30 g fuge is a plastic storage bin from Target--I'd say 24" long x 18" wide x 18" deep. I run 4 x 18W undercabinet fluorescents with 10,000K grow lamps. Obviously, Chaeto needs some nutrients to live. If you don't have much in the way of phosphates and/or nitrates, it's not going to do well. Cyano is actually so competitive that it will outcompete everything (including corals) for what little phosphate there is in the water. Accordingly, if you have very little phosphates, you can actually create a bad situation vis-a-vis cyano by running Chaeto or, for that matter, a Phos reactor.

 

[ser_renely]

good post

 

[jun_celis]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13265299#post13265299 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by abulgin
Are you running a Phos reactor? If so, you need to choose between one or the other.

What temp is that bulb? If it's not 6500K or higher, that could be your problem.

Sorry to say but that's not true! I use both and my chaeto has been thriving ever since. Anyway, when I first started with a chaeto, I have to try at least 3x because it kept dying on me. So, i added Iron and then 24/7 lighting... that's the simplest way I could describe how I fixed that.

 

[abulgin]

Sorry, but if you aren't starting out with much phosphate, and/or your system doesn't produce (either through food addition, waste or otherwise) much phosphate, then you won't have much success if you run both a Phos reactor and a fuge. GFOs are very efficient and can remove almost 100% of phosphate in the water. If you're running GFO and you don't have much phosphate, your Chaeto is going to starve and die.

IMO, people who run GFO and whose Chaeto grows well have a phosphate and/or nitrate problem. I stopped using my Phos reactor 6 months ago, and my Chaeto has done 100% better and my tank has never looked better/more free of nuisance algae.

 

[FutureBoyGenius]

I am not running a phos reacter and my nitrates and phospates are the sole reason I elected to pipe in a refugium. My nitrates were stuck at 20ppm, fortunately since I have had the chaeto and removed it because of its death my nitrates have been <5ppm. I am thinking about adding a sandbed and trying the chaeto again. This time more for pods and nutirent control of course.

Is there any suggestions on a way to deal with my nuissance algea? My sand has hair groing from it and a reddish brown color. I know this is a relatively common problem and it may just take further establishment to solve.

Thank you all for your responses.

 

[abulgin]

how deep is your sand bed? are you using and mechanical fiktration (canister, foam sponges, etc.) or bioballs?

 

[FutureBoyGenius]

My sandbed in the display tank is 3-4inch. I am not using any mechanical filtration except for one sponge at the top of my sump. I keep it changed biweekly.

 

[jvr1102]

My chaeto has done very well with just a 15$ flourescent from lowes (24/7). I also run a phosban reactor

 

[SharkBait_Mtl]

I purchased a softball sized chunk of chaeto about 3 months ago and used a similar light like the one you posted. aparently it did not give off the right color temp. after about a month or so I changed that light to these lights from coralife and has been running on a 24h light period. I still have not seen much growth. I do not run a phosban reacton but I do run carbon through a reactor. I Had a cyano problem but it is almost completly gone now.

Are there any other factors that contribute to the growth of chaeto?? I had a nutrient problem due to over feeding and I have cut their feed in half to help with removing the cyano I had.

I was thinking of removing those lights and putting my Jalli light fixture (2x VHO actinic, 1x 250w MH) would this give me better light and help my chaeto grow?? or would this light burn my chaeto?

 

[supercon71]

There is some evidence that using bulbs rated at 5100K is optimal. Marc Levinson did his own little study on this and I found it quite informative:

http://www.melevsreef.com/fuge_bulb.html

Personally, I found a 5500K bulb at Home Depot and prior to using this I had major die-off of my chaeto...... now in about 2 weeks it has doubled in size and has changed from a very un-healthly looking drab green to a quite healthy color.

During this time I have had both chaeto and GFO being utilized in the tank, however, I actually began to discontinue the use of my Phosphate Reactor as of yesterday. While I have heard success stories of using both for extended periods of time, logic states to me that this might just possibly be a sign of phosphate issues to begin with. My Chaeto die-off happened almost immediately when I added my reactor (and when I changed to lighting that I have no clue what K it even was). Using a fuge bulb of 5500K brought the chaeto back, and i'm thinking that not using GFO anymore will reap even more rewards.

I have never had phosphate issues, and very little, if any, nuisance algea. Although I have a spot or two of cyano recently.....