Effectiveness of chaeto

[Myka]

Brown algae...where? On the sand mostly? Probably diatoms. They are the first sign of a nutrient problem moving in. No matter what test kits say, if there is algae there are nitrate and phosphate in the tank and the algae is feeding off it. Cyano is dark red and slimy/stringy and often has "air" bubbles in it.

The original question, how effective is Chaeto? It can be very effective when employed properly, but most people don't set it up very well.

[lastlight]

Originally Posted by Myka

The original question, how effective is Chaeto? It can be very effective when employed properly, but most people don't set it up very well.

Care to elaborate on this? Are you referring to a minimum mass of chaeto relative to the system size or a means of tumbling the chaeto? Curious because I'll be doing the chaeto thing shortly myself.

[Xenoch88]

Right now I have a ery small amount of chaeto, that has been in the tank since day 1. It has grown maybe a little but not much.


Once I get the hood fixed (lower the level of the external overflow) I will be running the chaeto in a reverse light cycle in the refugium/Sump just to remove nitrate (if any pods make it up to the top via the pump, yay! if not, oh well.)


Till then, it is brown algea, and since I just added my 2 clows a week or 10 days ago, and when I removed the cheato to the sump and it failed the diatoms exploded thereafter, so before that perhaps my cheato was gobbling everything up nicely.

For now it is a minimal amount, but I am hoping it will grow!

Xen