bubbly chaetomorpha ?!?

[eameres]

I've gotten some clumps of chaeto from various sources. For a while (probably almost a month) I was growing it right in one section of my sump under a 14w flourescent bulb 24/7 (it was doing quite nicely there). Then I got a hang on refugium, and split off a bunch to put in there (14-16 hours of light there).

Anyhow, I've noticed a fair amount of it has turned to brown mush, and even the nice healthy stuff is typically accompanied by lots of air bubbles (not green bubble algae) in both my sum and fuge. There's also a fair amount of other more yucky algaes growing in there as well these days.

Am I doign something wrong? I pictured my refugium would be fairly neat with a nice big "clean looking" mass of chaeto, not quite as mucky as it seems to be.

The cleanest bunch was actually growing in a nice seperate tank of live sand where I was cultivating pods under fairly low light, and little water flow. Does Chaeto not like a lot of waterflow (i.e. even a fairly low 100gph in my hang on fuge) ?

[beerguy]

I don't profess to be an expert but in my experience chaeto needs good flow. Without it, detritus accumulates on it and cyano gets a toe-hold.

Your mileage may very but you also need to keep in mind that if your display tank is doing okay but you're getting "bad" algae in your refugium, the refugium is doing it's job.

Cheers

[Ron Leversee]

Beerguy; I think you hit the nail right on the head... Bad and good algae in the refugium none in the tank that's the whole idea!!!

Chaeto like moderate to high flow to thrive... So I've read... Mine get's that and does real well...