AlgaeBarn chaeto grew dinos

I had an order of AlgaeBarn "clean" chaeto, and put it in a new 5g bucket with a fairly new pump and heater (that has never seen my display tank that had dinos). I also put a small light over the bucket.

Anyway, I was trying to grow a bunch of chaeto while my tank was going through a dino problem, and once that was over, I was going to try to reintroduce the chaeto into my algea reactor. That was the plan. But I noticed that my bucket started growing dinos and was full blown dinos within a couple weeks in the bucket.

OK, so a few possibilities:
1. The algaebarn chaeto came with dinos
2. There could possibly be contamination from my display tank? Not sure how, but I wasn't extra careful.
3. My RO/DI water has dinos, which seems impossibly silly (TDS 0, no measure of anything).

The bucket was a fresh mix of Aquaforest Reef Salt and RO/DI water. I dosed Iron, Trisodium Phosphate, and Sodium Nitrate. I never "changed" the water, but topped it off with RO/DI every week (probably had some big salinity swings, but who cares, it's just chaeto). I dosed the three things just so the chaeto had something to eat.

Anyway, not sure what the point of all this is, other than to report some interesting results. I wouldn't say it's absolutely the chaeto that I got my dinos from, but it does seem suspicious.

 

Probably that batch of AlgaeBarn Chaeto. Others have run into this and frankly I'm not sure anyone can ever guarantee perfectly clean Chaeto all the time.

 

Good reason to quarantine EVERYTHING!

 

Ugh they were going to be my source chaeto as well.

 

I wouldn't say it's definite that it comes with dinos, but the company seems to be falling a bit on quality lately (see all the pods concerns lately). The Chaeto I got was also super "crispy," and would break like uncooked instant noodles. Not at all like chaeto I've had in the past. They then tried to source a new set of chaeto, which I think fixes this problem? They had a strange strain.

I'm not sure what other source of chaeto would be good. I'm thinking of setting up an old ATO on a bucket in my garage and manually dose iron/no3/po4 weekly for growing chaeto in a controlled environment. I was thinking of taking a small clump that I could thoroughly wash out and grow it over a couple months to see what else would grow. If it is bad, I'll just start over.

Now I just have to figure out where to source that first chaeto...

 

Is your tank doing bad now without Chaeto?
I gave up on the whole algae scrubber thing a while ago. Sure it worked, perhaps too well, and was a pain.

I switched to a Majano scrubber,. That was very effective.

(I dose vinegar)

 

If you’re patient you could take a very small strand to start with and clean it to start out with. Just let it keep growing.

 

Tank is doing great. I just dose NoPox and skim. I actually probably won't need an algae reactor if this works...

 

Ahh, the typical reefer type.
Tank is doing great, but you get bored/curious/whatever, and just have to try to mess with it anyway.
I do the same thing.

 

It's the worst! =)

 

Has anyone ordered from reefcleaners.org? I can’t find chaeto too many places.

 

I did, but I threw it out. I found hair algae and some other things in it that were a bit iffy. Might have just been an isolated case. AlgaeBarn had the "cleanest" I found out of the bag, but then this happened. When they say "clean," I believe it's mostly because it's grown in a system without fish, so things like ich etc. wouldn't come with it, but it never talks about other types of nuisance algae not hitchhiking in.

You could try it, but just grow it out in a separate bucket for a few months first, dosing with plenty of NO3/PO4 to see how it goes. If the color of the chaeto starts lighting up, you can also dose Iron.

 

Shoot them an email to find out what they define as "clean"

 

Since AlgaeBarn hasn’t had any chaeto in stock for a while I put in an order for 2 tennis ball sized bunches of chaeto. I will give a close inspection. Were you able to easily see the hair algae on the stuff you got?

 

I honestly don't think you need to worry about hair algae being a pest. You're gonna get that no matter what in your tank. Chances are you probably already have it.

And I doubt algaebarn would claim that they are clean against any other algae. If they did, I'd call BS in a heartbeat. It looks like they're really only claiming pests/organisms (not alage) and even that claim has a CYA statement.

If you asked me, I think any healthy ball of chaeto soaked in rodi for 10-15 minutes will pretty much rid all the pests that you're probably scared about and will serve you well. I have done this on more than one occasion.

 

I have chaeto if anyone needs some. Probably not as clean as Johns @JVU . It seems a lot of stuff grows in with my chaeto. At times it has been covered in bacterial sludge, a growing medium for GHA and red with cyano, but I just use it for nutrient export, so I really dont care too much. Today it is fairly clean and crisp.

 

Well I’m setting up my new Red Sea 170 with dry rock and trying to prevent pest algae’s especially from getting into it. My plan is to start an algae reactor before fish and light are introduced to the display so any algae grows in the reactor not the tank.

 

Is it even possible to keep pest algae out of a reef?

 

I think it rates a 1 on the reef fantasy/reef certainty scale. I think it’s theoretically possible but not really attainable. You only need water and light for the film algae to grow. Trying to prevent a single spore of any kind of algae out sounds nearly impossible to me.

 

"Life, Uh, Finds a Way" -- Dr. Ian Malcolm