Chaeto Growth

[digital-audiophile]

I always see people "pruning" their cheato on a regular basis, I on the other hand seem to not be able to grow it out at all. It looks healthy but just does not seem to increase in size. I use a reverse photo period in my sump with 65W of PC lighting.

[Clown]

I found the same thing the guy i got it from it was growing like crazy
look good but stayed the same size
i am using a normal grow light for like mangovve pods
and all my other macro algea is doing good

[Delphinus]

I have the same complaint with the stuff. For what it's worth, when I grew it in the sump of a 20g I had going, I had the lights basically 3" off the water surface, and THEN it grew quickly. Right now I have it under a plant grow light and it's pretty much non-growing whatsoever.

So I think it's a case of it wants fairly bright light to kick it into gear. I'm going to put it in the sump and then hang a 150W halide over top of it to see if that will make a difference.

[digital-audiophile]

Maybe I'll hang my 250W pendant over it for a bit. I'm surprised that with my carlife fixture that it is not doing anything, I used to have that light over a 40G FW tank and it grew plants like no tomorrow.

[skylord]

I have found the lower my nitrates the slower the growth.

Scott

[Delphinus]

I think the problem is that chaeto tends to be so densely packed in on itself that it is essentially self-shading. So the top surface is probably growing whereas the lower parts probably aren't. Whereas under a halide, the whole ball sort of glows green and thus more of it can grow.

Such is my theory anyhow ... I could be wrong. Maybe if it was in a shallow vessel so it couldn't be tall, ie. only a few inches of water, one could get away with less lighting ... I dunno. <shrug>

[fishface]

I have found the lower my nitrates the slower the growth.

Scottexactly. on a side note regarding lighting, i had a 96w light over top of my refugium for quite a while and my cheato grew a lighter and more stragly style if you get my drift. when i changed to a compact florescent 27w bulb it changed back to the deep green and very tightly brillo pad style.

[Reefer Rob]

My chaeto grew like crazy for the first month then slowed right down. From what I've read I'm thinking it may need iron. Just started dosing on the weekend so I'll see what happens in the next little while.

As far as lighting goes, Home Depot sells a 4 pack of 27W 5100K CF bulbs. The package says "simulates sunlight at noon". Combined with a clip on light with an aluminium reflector they seem to work pretty good.