How big can a chaeto ball get?

whatcaneyedo · #1 06-26-2009, 06:48 PM

I've been growing chaetomorpha for the last few months in my refugium under two 23W 6500K CF bulbs. Previously I grew caulerpa and then gracilaria. The Chaeto seems to have grown nearly to the size of a basketball and then stopped growing. I have more room for it to grow larger but it doesnt seem to want to get any bigger so I removed a handfull the other day. After doing some reading I also switched to two 20W 4100K CF floodlights. Does anyone get theirs to grow larger than that or does it just max out at that size? When I used to grow caulerpa it could grow large enough to fill the entire section that it was in.

I've been thinking that maybe I should give it even more light so I've been considering upgrading to MH over my fuge but that seems like it would be a little excessive.

Salinity 1.025
Phosphate 0.01 (elos)
Nitrate <1 (elos)
Constantly tumbling in a 20gal area with +/- 700gph of flow

michika · #2 06-26-2009, 06:55 PM

Mine kind of naturally maxes out at about something like that. I find that eventually a significant change either in its size, pruning, or a nose dive in water quality, will get it growing again.

Myka · #3 06-26-2009, 06:58 PM

I've never had mine max out, but I find it does better with lower flow. I always run refugiums around 100-200 gph...just trickling. The chaeto seems to prefer this too, and supposedly a slower flow helps the chaeto to absorb the nutrients from the water.

karazy · #4 06-26-2009, 09:58 PM

not sure what the max size is, but ive seen cheato the size of a fat full grown cat.

parkinsn · #5 06-26-2009, 10:37 PM

well not sure of max size but this is a big one

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=53124

FitoPharmer · #6 06-29-2009, 12:24 AM

i used to throw out more then 1/2 a garbage bag of cheato every few months from my 125g sump in its hayday.