Algae dying in refugium.

[sankhamg]

I have set up a 40G refugium in my set up with miracle mud for my 200G tank and my fishes and corals are doing great with water parameters doing really good. But i have this problem where as all the algae in refugium keeps on dying slowly. I've provided it with good 24/7 LED lighting. what could be the problem? :(

 

[kylemack87]

I personally have the fuge light on for 12-14 hours when my main display is off. Keeps my Ph stable. But you want to have a 6 hour "dark" period on your fuge for proper respiration. Chaeto and most macros will do better with a break from light. Caloupera is the only macro that I know that should be lit 24/7. This helps lower the risk of it going sexual. I would stick with chaeto in the fuge so you don't have the chance of a tank crash from caloupera spores and it taking over your tank.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

I run my fuge light for my cheato 24/7. Chaeto is doing great with no ph swing.

 

[NathanMI]

I was running the lamp 24/7 and it was working I have sea grapes and cheato. Now I run the schedule opposite of my DT and now it's doing much better! If you give it a shot it may help a lot.

 

[kylemack87]

I was running the lamp 24/7 and it was working I have sea grapes and cheato. Now I run the schedule opposite of my DT and now it's doing much better! If you give it a shot it may help a lot.

+1:smile:

 

[NathanMI]

I forgot to add I switched due to heat issue. Having 4 T5 bulbs on at a time is much cooler than 8! I don't run a chiller I use fans.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

I was running the lamp 24/7 and it was working I have sea grapes and cheato. Now I run the schedule opposite of my DT and now it's doing much better! If you give it a shot it may help a lot.

Im sorry, i dont understand your post. How long has your sump been set up to give some actual info? Im not in the market of growing cheato, more for absorbing trates and phates. I ran lights un opposite swing and nothing different. I tried all the gimmics and leaving an old clip on (reptile heater) lamp works just fine. You start growing it to quickly, it will die off. As soon as phates and trates are gone...... Good bye algae. But thanks for the new knowledge you have. :-)

 

[NathanMI]

It was running for a month before I switched with fuge lights 24/7. I have 4 T5 bulbs on my 20g sump, I had a softball size of cheato when I started and I pull out about half that at the end of the month to make it about the size of a softball again. Last month I ran the fuge light from 10pm to 4pm the following day and the DT light from 4-10pm every day. (No coral yet) now I have about 3 times the amount of cheato I started with with just a small break! Feeding and water statyed the same.

 

[wontonflip]

if you have low bioload, the chaeto could just be starving...this is assuming your LEDs are strong enough and are of the right kelvin rating. Mine do well under a 24w (100 watt equivalent) CFL, and it's 1600K.

But again, the chaeto could just be starving. In my 45g, when I first added the chaeto, they doubled in size really fast. My nitrates quickly went down to 0 and stayed there. I had low bioload, and fed minimally. Eventually, the chaeto kept dying off and I had to pull it out.

 

[sen5241b]

Seen this happen before. People always underestimate the light and flow cheato and macro algae in general needs. I got 2 lights both abut 25 watts. Flow thru my 3 g fuge is 260gph