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Chaeto dying. why?


Jeff.Tichenor

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I was throwing it out by the literal garbage bag full last year, then it all died off too.  I think it used up my nutrients.  Ironically my nutrients are going back up, and I have no chaeto now.

Your DT looks spotless, it might be just too clean.  These are guesses of course, for what its worth.

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Ya, I'd wanna see nitrate and phosphate numbers, and how they're tested. I'd wonder about salinity since it's a fowlr...is it 35ppt?
I would normally suggest chaetogro or similar, but without a history of algae growing, it's not likely depleted of those micronutrients/minerals.

What's the numbers?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

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Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. 

My salinity is 33ppt / 1.0245

PO4 is .15 and NO3 is 25 (Nyos kits)

I do a 30% water change monthly.

I did a Chemiclean treatment about 6 weeks ago for some red slime, followed by a 30% water change about 2 weeks ago. Put the chaeto in a week ago after removing about 4 cups of algea from the sump. Would the residual chemiclean hurt chaeto?

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Hmmm, that seems like enough nutrients to me.  Chaeto is such a mystery sometimes...

This video solved my problems when I couldn't get it to grow:

However, I use black box leds, two right next to each other and absolutely douse the chaeto with light.  Way more than I would ever put on coral, both channels 100% over what amounts to about a 20 gallon area of the sump.  The par must be incredible in there.

This was key for me to get it to grow, ALLOT more light than the DT.  Like I said, it was nothing to throw away an entire kitchen garbage bag of it at a time.  I was the chaeto king, had chaeto for all.  Then the nutrients died down, and now it is an empty sump chamber with allot of light, probably should turn it down LOL

Black box leds for me, because chaeto in my book does not deserve a more expensive light than the DT :nutty:

Looks like you have a powerful light.  Crank that grow light up as high as it will go and see if it makes a difference.

Others may have different experiences, just my share...

 

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If you’re topping off your water near there I’ve had that kill off macroalgae before.

Iron supplements help. I use ferrous gluconate. 

But otherwise yeah, aside from trace minerals being low (which shouldn’t happen due to water changes), iron, and lighting, there’s no apparent reason chaeto should die off except being outcompeted by your coral.

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Thanks again for the replies and suggestions. 

It looks like the chaeto is no longer dying off.

I tried increasing the light duration by going all the way to 24hrs a day and it was making it worse. So I set it back to 12 hrs a day and just waited. I guess it just needed some time to get acclimated to this light because it seems to be doing fine now. 

BTW - bought this from RUSALTY.COM. 1st purchase from them. Perhaps the ground shipment from FL was the reason for the partial loss. 🤷‍♂️

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