Cheato growth?
 

Just looking through a few threads and see everyone's cheato grows like crazy and they harvest every few weeks. I've had mine in my sump for months and it is growing, but is basically a big square clump thats never been harvested. I've just got a desk lamp for lighting as I was told this was enough....does it need more light? What's the secret??

I personally keep my chaeto under t5's.

I find it does better under the stronger light ,IME.

Square as in it is pressing up to all sides and corners of the tank? If yes then it is time to harvest.

Nope, not square from being up against the glass, just seems to grow flat on all sides.

What is a good sump light fixture that's not going to break the bank?

I use one of these 6500K CFL bulbs for my refugium, cheato grows very well. I got mine at Canadian tire I think for about $4.00... cant beat that value.

http://www.lampsplus.com/products/15...lb__35221.html

http://image.lampsplus.com/is/image/...i=460&fmt=jpeg

I originally bought the same bulbs Snaz linked, but then I went with this 2-pack as they don't need a reflector type fixture
I had to open the packaging in-store to find out they are 6500K as there was no on-line info

Bit more money, but you can use a simple socket

http://www.homedepot.ca/product/16w-...-2-pack/964412

http://www.homedepot.ca/wcsstore/Hom...4.235432_4.jpg

Awesome, thanks guys! Will probably pick up one of each! Hmmmm and here I was thinking I needed some fancy fixture....

Nope, no fancy sump light necessary. Been using Phillips Daylight (6500k) CFL bulbs for years with good success.

By all means try a different bulb, it's a cheap experiment, however if you have a low nutrient system, are running heavy amounts of GFO and or cabon dosing, or have a low bio load you may just not have enough nutients in your system to support heavy growth of cheto (not a bad thing). I have only havested mine once in maybe 10 months since starting to run GFO.

I found the stronger the light, the faster it grows. I put a tiny clump in my overflow chamber that gets hit with my ai sols and it grows 100x faster than the clump in my refugium under just a normal ikea bulb. I'm getting a led fuge light made out of red and a blue led to grow my chaeto.

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also because the first bunch of cheato is eating some of the raw nutrients before it hits whats in your sump and filtered by your fuge.

if you were to put 3 balls of cheato under the same lights in a line heading towards your sump i bet the first ball grows quickest:)

cheato is a hog for light though:)

cheato also grows best when its moving or in moving water:)