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Originally Posted by pammy  Hello. I've tried chaeto in my sump twice, and it didn't do well and ended up dying. I think it's because there is too little flow in the very small section I have in my sump where I placed it. |
You and I have nearly the same
sump (with the same slow-flow chamber), and I have been successfully growing Chaeto in there for over 2 months. I started with a small tight ball of angry chaeto, and it loosened and grew to fill the whole chamber. I then harvested half, and it is now about 3/4 filling up the chamber again.
I chose to light it from the side, making sure to use a fixture in the 5000-6500k range for optimal growth. You can see my setup using
this link.
I do have to turn the chaeto by hand every 2-3 days to make sure all sides get exposure. There are anthropods (obtained from ipsf.com) and more recently copepods that I have seen in there.
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I decided to pile up some rock rubble in that section to try to have a predator-free zone for pod reproduction. Do I need to light the sump just for the pods? (I'm guessing no).
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No, and you do not want to light it if you wish to encourage growth of sponges. My first two chambers (after the
skimmer) are filled with
LR rubble, and I see several areas of sponges, but all the critters are in the Chaeto.
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In my display, I have red macro algae that popped up on my live rock. (see pictures below). I set up my tank in May, and in July, the red macro algae didn't even exist yet. The attached picture is from November. I love this red macro algae and think it is really pretty, and grows pretty fast.
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That's fantastic. I'll take some of your export!
I am planning a Display
Refugium to hook in line with my
sump (waiting for ELOS, or Euro-Reef to come out with their Nano), and your Red algae (form of Gracilaria or Halymenia?) is one of the most attractive species I've seen. You can see a beautiful picture of the same red algae in Calfo&Fenner's
Reef Invertebrates book (page 46). Unfortunately, the image has no caption, so I am at a loss to identify the species.
As far as favorable algae is concerned, my
LR came with a Halimeda species and a Chlorodesmis species. (Turtle Grass). Perhaps not as innocuous as Chaeto or Gracilaria, but interesting if kept if controlled.
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I have to trim it down by about 50%, every two weeks or so.
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That's a really good growth rate. My Chaeto is doubling every 4-5 weeks or so.
