Cheato Cleaning??

CKreef · #1 12/24/2007, 05:22 PM

I have noticed a lot of detritus building up in my cheato. Does anyone ever clean their cheato? If so how? Thanks Chris

musicman · #2 12/24/2007, 05:54 PM

When I had a tank and was running cheato (great stuff, I might add!) I did my culling and leaning of cheato when I did my water changes. I kept the old water in a bucket, and simply vigorously shook out the cheato in this before I dumped the old water. That way you don't re-release all that poop in the tank.

Best of luck and have fun!

Mikeyjer · #3 12/25/2007, 03:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by musicman
When I had a tank and was running cheato (great stuff, I might add!) I did my culling and leaning of cheato when I did my water changes. I kept the old water in a bucket, and simply vigorously shook out the cheato in this before I dumped the old water. That way you don't re-release all that poop in the tank.

Best of luck and have fun!

That's exactly what I do when I do water changes......

NeveSSL · #4 12/25/2007, 10:52 AM

That is exactly what I'm going to START doing.

Brandon

H@rry · #5 12/25/2007, 11:12 AM

Don't you lose a lot of pods, worms, and starfish doing that?

NeveSSL · #6 12/25/2007, 11:34 AM

Hmmm... thats a pretty good point. I would think pods more than anything, tho.

I guess I may give it a try and just see what all comes out.

Just catch back what I want to keep.

Brandon

musicman · #7 12/25/2007, 07:43 PM

Well yea, but everything's a trade off. You lose tons of pods, etc when you toss out a lump of cheato, too. I kept about 2" of 1-2" jagged rocks in an area of my fuge, and there were always PLENTY of pods to feed whatever was in my tank. Losing 2-3% by cleaning out my cheato didn't really bother me.

rsteagall · #8 12/25/2007, 08:02 PM

When trimming my cheato... I pick out every single pod by hand.

Just kidding :O

I do however try to pick out every micro serpent star and throw it back in my tank

I started with like 5 stars that I got from fishdoc about 2 years ago. No telling how many I have now.... but its a bunch.

I like those little things. And lord knows I have enough hair algae for them to live in!

Mikeyjer · #9 12/26/2007, 12:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by H@rry
Don't you lose a lot of pods, worms, and starfish doing that?

You rather have a dirty ball of chaeto where your phosphates builds up or you want a clean chaeto where's there's no detritus on it? That's the way you have to look at it.