refugium light

what does everyone use for a light in the fuge? I don't think my fuge is working as well as it could. I have one of those clip on heat lamp type fixture with a single CFL 6500K bulb. my chaeto has bleached in spots..its white and my calupera was over running the fuge but i trimmed it and fed it to my foxface, thinking it would rapidly grow again but its not. I had some red bubble algae in the fuge too but its all gone apparently..don't know where it went.

any advice or tips?

 

you could have too much light.. the cheato could also not have enough food.. Your water may be too clean..

ive always heard cheato only needs 10 watts at 4200k or above to grow.. i use a 40watt walmart clip on desk lamp with a spiral 6700k bulb and i have to trim it out every two weeks

 

i guess i should mention i have a small fuge its a 20G tank that i made into a fuge. 3 chamber, 1 for skimmer, 1 for fuge , and last is the return pump . i set up the fuge when i needed some way of controlling the hair algae in my display tank. It did a good job, its all gone except in the very shaded areas where it is short like turf algae. I need some tips on maintaining a fuge... more specifically how to properly stock and care. My cheato and calupera had been over run by hair algae in the fuge, so they were getting no light. I use to flip the hair algae over to the bottom and bring the other stuff up but now my fuge is looking kinda empty....

But on the bulb....my LFS was the one who sold it and said i might need more..are you sure its a 4200K?

 

yeah.. anytime in this hobby, when something bleaches, its because its getting too much lights, most of the time.. maybe try and go less wattage

 

sounds good ill try that

 

I doubt the macro is getting too much light. Most likely the hair algae is outcompeting it for nutrients. Possibly this would not happen if light levels where lower, if the chaeto is able to utilize lower light levels than the cheato. Also hair algae tends to like flow, possibly reducing the flow would help. HA can be P limited so GFO may help. And in all likelihood cheato will be more sensitive to iron deficiencies than hair algae, so if none of the above works, you could try dozing iron.

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My chaeto is under high flow conditions and a 90w equivalent CF bulb, and does really well. I'd put it under higher light, and try to kill off as much of the hair algae as possible with another means like adding snails or pulling it by hand to keep it from outcompeting the chaeto.

 

yeah i could pull out th HA but does it matter what type of algae you have in the fuge? I know some ppl say a good fuge should resemble a swamp..I started the fuge with calupera, some chaeto, and some red bubble algae, some small rubble LR and some crushed coral substrate. how did the HA get to be able to out compete all the other stuff in the fuge ?