chaeto problem?
 

I have a 75g reef tank with a 30gallon sump/fuge inside my fuge i have a ball of chaeto with a DSB. I have about 550gph going threw the fuge. I light it with the Bulb from Melev's site on a reverse photoperiod. The PROBLEM is for 2 months now my chaeto has not grown at all , seriously and honestly maybe 10% growth. Now it is my understanding if you have no nutrients in system it will not grow? BUT i have has 20 ppm of nitrate for about 1.5 months now. I have checked with 2 different test kits. Now if i have nitrate in system shouldnt my chaeto be growing and sucking it up?

I had the same problem, once I had those extra nutrients it took off like crazy. Within 2 weeks it almost doubled.

I had and still have same problem....I can't grow the stuff in my tank:confused: yet a while ago I had a patch of red slime on my sand bed:rolleyes:

Is the bulb you're using in the 6000K range somewhere? If not, this would make a huge difference. Also, how many watts is the bulb?

i'm right there w/ cmc5dc and the OP. Melev's bulb (5100K, i believe) cheato slowly turned to mush and died. cyano in the fuge w/ the chaeto, so there was excess nutrients...

[url=http://www.melevsreef.com/fuge_bulb.html]http://www.melevsreef.com/fuge_bulb.html[/URL]

what b ulb do you use now

I use a cheap "Lights of America" light from Home Depot. It comes with a 6700K bulb. My chaeto loves it.

I use these lights on 3 of my fuges and all are doing well.

Hm... to tell you the truth my param always read close to 0 but my chaeto grows i would say about 10% a week. They only started after i got the 6500K Philips bulbs from Home Depot, before i was using a screw on power compact by coralife 50/50 and it did **** with chaeto.

so a bulb around 6500k is the best?

I would love to know where you find the K ratings of bulbs from Home Depot OR Phillips. I can't find it on the packaging...

I live in Ireland and all I can ever get is 2700K bulbs. When I rehook my fuge after christmas I might get a freshwater plant bulb. How do halogen lamps fair for growing chaeto?

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11288686#post11288686 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by conjuay [/i]
[B]I would love to know where you find the K ratings of bulbs from Home Depot OR Phillips. I can't find it on the packaging... [/B][/QUOTE]


home depot has a few different brands. the one that shows the k rating is a brand (which i can't remeber the name exactly) that's called envision or something like that. anyways, they have three package colors which represent the different k ratings--green, red and blue. you want to buy the blue one, which i believe is 5,500k. however, these are on the steep side. for a bit more (around $35) they have the lights of america brand. i think someome said costco has them for $10 though.

If you are not sure, then on every package of the bulb you have customer service #.Call them from the home depot and ask about specific bulb you like. Most cust. serv. are 24/7.

mine dont grow either but i seen other reefers have there light 1inch over the cheato, i dont have that set up yet, if you can,place the light right above the cheato, good luck.

chewieee, another thing to do is reduce the flow through your fuge. You are presently going over 7 times an hour. For a sump 3 to 5 is good go on the lower end for a fuge. The water needs to spend some time with the cheato. If it's moving too fast it doesn't have time to remove anything from the water.