[Bayinaung]

I have a big basket of chaetos and it seems it's volume has shrunk by 30-40% in a week's time! I added more mangroves into the system and I'm wondering if that's the cause of the death. What do you guys think?

My nutrients are ultra low, everything had been running at 0, phosphates were at less than 0.25ppm at the time I added more mangroves. Could mangroves be outcompeting chaeto for nutrients and thus causing the death? I noticed macroalgae I added to the tank didn't last long.

 

[sig]

chaeto needs something to eat also. It will not grow just with lights.

I have the same problem in all tanks. Parameters are perfect, but bad for chaeto

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[aquatic_expressions]

Chaeto would out compete mangroves. I do not believe that addition of your mangroves is the cause. I believe it can be one of two things. Low iron or low nutrients.

Also what kind of light are using to grow the chaeto and do you use a reverse photo period or leave it on 24/7?

 

[Bayinaung]

I'm using 4 T5s on the chaeto tank, they're about 6" from the tubes, lights are on 12 hours a day (tubes not that old). they were doing fine till I added more mangroves. I have two kinds - one's very fine and another is thicker and more wiry and both have lost lots of volume in a week's time. I guess they were dying and just melting away as I didn't see dead strands at all.

 

[aquatic_expressions]

Lighting wise you are doing well especially because you are on a 12 hour photo period.

I would recommend trying to source a product from Brightwell Aquatics called Ferrion. It will provide more nutrients and iron to your chaeto. It also would be a bad idea to flip the chaeto once every month too.

Hope this helps

 

[PACMAN]

chaeto needs something to eat also. It will not grow just with lights.

I have the same problem in all tanks. Parameters are perfect, but bad for chaeto

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[Bayinaung]

It's more than HALF melted in a week's time! what happened! it was such a huge healthy stock. that's what I do - turn them over once a week and that's when I noticed a lot of it was gone. and this afternoon I was taking out half of the chaeto to put them in a grow bin of their own (like I do with mangroves and feed them the waste water from the skimmer) and realized there wasn't much left at all. I couldn't believe they melted this fast.

 

[Bayinaung]

and what's mystifying is that I can smell the water on my hand after being in it, meaning there's still some phosphates in there, i.e. it isn't pristine.

 

[altcharacter]

something eating it?

 

[ReefABCs]

Maybe something in the water the chaeto is not liking, could try running some carbon?

Carbon should hep reduce the odor too.

 

[Bayinaung]

there are no critters in the bottom tank except three fishes who show no interest in the chaeto. Was at NAFB and they have trouble keeping chaeto as well.

 

[Bayinaung]

I don't want to use carbon bec. it'll take away nutrients from mangroves and macroalgae. Most of the caulpera also melted away too. Strange.