Problems with Cheto

N

nieczy

I'm not sure what the deal is but the cheto in my system is not happy. It's been slowly breaking down and shrinking for the last few weeks.

SG 1.025
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10 - 20 ppm probably closer to 10
Temp 78-80
pH about 8.2
I don't have a phosphate test kit so I'm not sure if this is limiting.
Lighting 5100K 75W bulb

All the snails, crabs, and fish in the system seem happy. I don't have a very much micro algae in the system. It looks like I've got some small sprouts of Macro on one of my live rocks in my display. Before I removed it, I had a small piece (2" long) of Grape Caulerpa that came balled in the cheto and it looked to be growing.

Last week I started dosing Kent Chelated Iron. It didn't seem to make a difference but it may have been too late.
 
I'm not sure because I have it tapped off my return. It's enough to cause ripples at the top of the aquarium and I had to put it up against some rocks to keep if from moving to a dimmer section of the refugium.
 
Sometimes chaeto does not do well in a new tank. If your tank is relatively new, that might be the problem.

The first batch of chaeto in my tank did the same thing you are describing. I put some more in my tank when it was about 10 months old, I tried again. It's been doing well since.
 
That could be the problem since I've only had livestock in it for a few weeks. I've seen several threads about cheto where some people just seem to have trouble growing it. I've even seen one case where a person had two systems one it grew fine in the other it didn't.
 
You can always try a different batch, from another person.

I've noticed that there can be variations in different strands of chaeto.
Some do better than others, and actually look different with the same light source, in the same fuge.

Also, as mentioned above, check your flow.
Best of luck!
 
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