Done with chaeto
 

As the title says I'm done with chaeto. I've been in this hobby for 5 years now and made numerous attempts in both of my tanks at growing chaeto in the fuge to help out with nutrient export. You name it and I've tried it without success.
I'm not looking for more ideas on growing chaeto. Has anyone had trouble growing chaeto and switched to another type of macroalgae without doing anything and had better success, if so what did you use?

What are your nitrate and phosphate values?

I can grow corals but I can't grow chaeto. I pulled the last of the dead stuff out and shut the lights off. I then packed the "chaeto area" of my sump with rubble. My reef actually seems a lot cleaner.
Cheers! Mark

I have given up too. I think there is value in having it so I have a reactor with floss and Chaeto that I purchase regularly from LFS. I hope to get a mandarin someday and I need the Chaeto for keeping them.

My system’s main and only filtration now is cheato

I can give you couple insights about it.

You need to find good quality cheato.
First of all it needs to have diverse population of pods on it and also you should have 12-15 hours photoperiod opposite to your main lights( I use kessil H80) and also sufficient nutrients. I have turned off my skimmer at all and use filter socks with refugium and that’s it

The reason for pods is if you gonna have powerful lights on it it will be outgrown with hair algae. Attachment 403010

Look at the color of it, it is so healthy


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Grows like a weed in my sump.

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I have a rotating Chaeto ball growing fine the sump of my haddoni biotop tank (42+14 gallon).
But in my 200 gallon system (100 gal display + 3x 20 gal Sumps/Fuge + 40 gal Algae Fuge) red macro algae and caulerpa dominate. Chaeto grows, but rather slowly. The red macro algae grow the fastest.

I have Caulerpa brachypus and chateo growing in my sump under a simple 10 watt led from Home Depot. I think nutrient levels play a part in the success or lack there of in growing it. Get some Caulerpa brachypus and it will take care of your N03/P04 and I believe it dose not go "sexual" but could be wrong on that.

That looks like the Caulerpa I have. It didn't go sexual in the at least two years I have it so far.

The worst in going sexual is Caulerpa racemosa, which is also one of the fastest growing Caulerpa. I had that one going from its thin form transitioning into its thick form and the thick form is the one that goes sexual all the time. You have to cut the stolons frequently to avoid losing all of it in one event.

We had caulerpa growing and it took over the display tank. This stuff is a nasty weed that is even illegal in some areas. It was so hard to get rid of, I will never grow it again.
Cheers! Mark

Tested on 8/3
Anemone tank - NO3 2.5 / PO4 0.2 this is the tank I'm presently trying to grow it in.
Main tank - NO3 10 / PO4 0.1 I've tried in this tank numerous times to outcompete some turf algae that's in the tank with no luck.

I like Ulva. In Nature, it comes and goes with nutrient fluctuations - just like you'd want in your system. Plus everything from pods to tangs loves eating it, so you can feed it to your tank as well.

I see this stuff all the time at the beach. I'll bring some home next time I'm there.

Interesting.

Hope you find something that works better for you. Maybe an algae turf scrubber is for you.

I have a scrubber and it’s pretty amazing. My water is crystal clear.

I never had much luck growing it with any special light that claimed it was for growing it. I alway went back to my 250MH to get great growth.

As mentioned, nitrate and phosphate levels play here. I've had a hard time growing it too. More fish waste! Ha

I had four types of macro in my reactor and it went sexual clouding up my tank and killing most of my coral. Now I just run cheato and it grows not so fast for me.

It grew fast in my tank when I added in to help with nitrates. I don't know what the problem could be?

For the better part of a year I had trouble growing chaeto. I would buy it, it would slowly die off while hoards of GHA invaded my display. I had a 10gallon separate refugium tank. The refugium would get overgrown with gunk and the chaeto would die. I think my flow was too low but what I finally realized is, we are conditioned to hate nuisance algaes and we want to get every scrap out of our system. Then I evenually realized, why fight it if GHA is what wants to consume the nutrients I have in my system why not use it. So I built an algae turf scrubber and it works amazingly well. And I built it over a 5 gallon tote in place of my 10g refugium, just so I could have a place to fill with rock rubble for pods that fall out of the scrubber. And amazingly, the scrubber grows pods like crazy. They love GHA just as much as chaeto if not more. My glass is covered in pods even during the day. Because of the super high flow and light only has to penetrate a thin screen of water, conditions are so good for algae in the scrubber that it cant help but outcompete your display. At least it worked wonders for me and I was in the same boat as you. Chaeto is picky and no one agrees on what conditions are best for it. With a scrubber there are detailed guidelines that pretty much guarantee success. Plus chaeto doesnt really consume phosphate which was the main reason I had GHA so bad. Anyway sorry for the long-winded post but that's my experience.

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