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Cheato Coloration

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The first sample of cheato I added to my fuge was from Winfield couple months ago.

Today I got a little more from the same fuge and layered it on top of what I had and the colors was way off.

Winfield's is dark and mine is very light green. See in this pic...

94667212b9f0a0412e6253599a1d445a.jpg


Also notice how the light green cheato has this dirt coating (although water in this chamber goes through a 200 micron sock).

Another thing to note is that this chamber didn't have any flow so I added a 120gph powerhead just yesterday.

I have a 23w 6500k CFL 5" away pointing at it (changed lights too)

Any advise on what could be wrong?
 
The chaeto there looks bleached out, so probably too much light or not enough flow. If you can turn up the system flow through your return pump, that'd be a good option. If you can't increase the flow through the sump, you might back the light off or use a smaller bulb.

There seems to be different opinions about flow rate through sumps, but I think you're generally better off with as much flow as you can provide that doesn't make too much noise or stir up your display tank.

The other thing to think about is how much chaeto your system can support, nothing wrong with thinning it back to encourage growth.
 
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Chaeto seems to like a lot of flow. Could be getting starved maybe? Are you still doing the algae scrubber thing and GFO? Those could be out competing it for nutrients
 
I think the issue is you have 3 different things competing for the same resources. Honestly though as long as it's not turning brown or clear I wouldn't worry to much about the color. The little bit of cheato I have left is a slightly different color between my two tanks, flow is similar and the lighting on both sumps is identical.
 
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mediumrare said:
you can also try supplementing a little iron
Click to expand...

I have experimented w/ this via the Kent Marine Iron & Manganese, but I don't recommend it. It will definitely improve the growth of your macro-algae, but it will even more dramatically improve the growth of nuisance algae and even cause a bloom. If you have any nuisance algae that is nutrient constrained, supplementing this can unblock them. That was my experience in my tank, yours may vary.
 
wpeterson said:
I have experimented w/ this via the Kent Marine Iron & Manganese, but I don't recommend it. It will definitely improve the growth of your macro-algae, but it will even more dramatically improve the growth of nuisance algae and even cause a bloom. If you have any nuisance algae that is nutrient constrained, supplementing this can unblock them. That was my experience in my tank, yours may vary.
Click to expand...
this is true, i would experiment with tiny ammounts of this supplementation and stop if nuisance algae starts growing.
 
I run the refugium lights for 10 hours, 1:30am-11:30am. I run the main display lights for 8 hours, 12pm-8pm. This timing helps even out my pH swings, because the photosynthesis in the refugium soaks up CO2 which slightly raises pH during the fall off in pH from the main display lights. This keeps the pH between 8.35-8.45 on the 24 hour swing:

H6iAjvL.png
 
The other thing I didn't mention is that the return pump in our sump puts out about 1500gph given the 5+ feet of head pressure to the return lines. The refugium is setup against a large baffle so there's a large volume of water flowing through to the return chamber over the baffle.

I'm running a 40w full-spectrum CFL in a home depot clamp-light with reflector:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AZOV9K
 
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Just an update... after few days of cutting down light cycle & adding the powerhead, very small part of the cheato is turning black-ish. Looks like cyano but my system has no Cyano anywhere else.
 
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