Cheato

[Altohombre]

as some of you know I have a 46g bow front with a stand that doesn't allow room for a sump or room for a refugium and I can't put one next to the tank because it is a shared apartment living room. Anyway since I have been having such problems with hair algae and a fish and some inverts that have suddenly declined, I have been wondering what I could do. Is it possible to put cheato in my tank in a corner so that it can suck up some of the nutrients as well as provide more pods for my mandarin? I know it grows fast but is it so fast that I can't keep taking it out and putting in a small piece?

 

[cthegame]

I put a ball of cheato in my DT when i thought it wasnt growing fast enough in the fuge. I had it in there for 2 months and nothing happened, it didnt grow much at all, so i just upgraded the lights on the fuge with one of thos HG lights and it grew really well. From my experience, nothing happened so it might not hurt but i think there is always a chance that some other type of algae is present in the cheato and could take over.

 

[simpleman]

What kind of lights do you have? It shouldn't be bad as long as your lighting is not in the low kelvin rating. I upgraded to a 65w 6500k light on my refuge,along with a baseball size chunk of chaeto, 2 weeks later it was the size of a basketball. Nitrates went from 20 to 0 :bounce: As long as the kelvin rating is 10k or higher chaeto won't grow too fast. imo.

 

[reeffreak]

It won't hurt to try.It's not evasive and attach to live rock,easily pruned or removed.

Put it in an area of decent flow.

 

[Bifferwine]

Get yourself a clear tupperware container and punch a bunch of holes in it for water flow. Then put the chaeto in that. You can hang it off the side of the tank if you want (on the inside). Chaeto is much better than other macroalgaes in that it doesn't attach to anything, so it won't become a plague on your rocks.

 

[daugherty]

chaeto will not grow in my tank i dont know why wit i bought a little a couple months ago ant it is still the same size even with light 24\7 but all pramns are 0 am o nitirte and 0 nitrate.

 

[simpleman]

What kind of light do you have on it daugherty

 

[reeffreak]

chaeto will not grow in my tank i dont know why wit i bought a little a couple months ago ant it is still the same size even with light 24\7 but all pramns are 0 am o nitirte and 0 nitrate.

....and that's a bad thing?Zero nitrates than the chaeto is doing its job.

Good thing.

 

[Bifferwine]

It won't grow because there aren't nitrates and phosphates in the water to feed it.

 

[dustin_P74]

which like dominick said is a good thing

 

[daugherty]

yea i put it in there just in case they have always been 0 across the board as for lights i have 2 20w fluorsent bulbs on it.

 

[JAG107]

I use a 15w flourescent bulb on my fuge and growth has been slow. Also, flow through it is a trickle, as I want it to primarily grow pods and live mysis. It actually grew faster when it was just a 10gal by itself without having the DT water flowing through it, which is weird.

 

[cthegame]

Doesn't regular light bulbs cause algae growth? and since Cheato is algae, it might grow really fast by using a standard light bulb. Long time ago i was going to try it but i didnt know if a normal bulb over my fuge would mess with the PH levels so i didnt try it. But since i put the low wattage (only 13 watts) HG ligh on it has grown so fast. Its those bulbs that produce really strong light with super low wattage. Works great. Before that, i had a 30 watt florescnet and then i added a second 30 watt total of 60 watts and the macro did not grow as fast as it did with that low 13 watt bulb. My ph levens did not change either. I highly recommend it.

 

[JAG107]

Actually now that I look at it mine is a 13w. One of those curly flourescents that "replaces" a 60w incandescent. Great little bulb for a buck, supposed to last 7000 hours!

 

[cthegame]

Yup and it will make the algae grow really fast.

 

[daugherty]

as long as it is the correct k rating the more red it has is better like a 5,5k bulb

 

[Bifferwine]

I've been using plant bulbs for my remote DSB. They seem to work fine.

 

[Altohombre]

umm yeah, where can I go about getting cheato? I haven't seen it in many stores. Seems like local people just have it some how.

 

[RyanG]

Hmm odd all of the LFS around me always have it. Check the board at MR someone always seems to have some.

 

[Bifferwine]

Ask the local people to give you a baggie full. You don't need much to start, and everyone has to prune theirs and get rid of some every once in a while anyways. If that fails, Ebay. I got mine off of Ebay, $5 for a ziplock bag full.