Chaeto-trim or not to trim

I am battling a GHA outbreak. It is getting better. I am a little confused about something. I grow Chaeto in my fuge. It grows like weeds. I wanted to know if it pulls more nutrients when it is bigger and takes up most of the fuge. Or does it use more after it is trimmed to say baseball size and starts re-growing. It is BIG right now.;D;D

 

I found it normally took a day or two after thinning it out but it did seem to help because more water was able to pass through the clump. I know a lot of reefers say if you can get the cheato to kind of roll around that helps also. I just thinned mine out today, I saved all the copopods and dropped them back into my tank.

 

I would think that it would be better to trim it back every once in a while. Takes more energy to create a biomass then to maintain it at such small volumes, when compared to the ocean.

 

trim that sukka to about baseball or softball size, and pull it apart from itself (space it out) the extra waterflowis what you are looking for with macro.

 

Another thing not mentioned yet in this thread, is that when you trim your macroalgae back (chaeto, caulerpa, or other), you're removing the nutrients absorbed, or eaten by the macro. I'm sure you're familiar with the term "nutrient export." Well having the macroalgae is the first step in exporting nutrients. Pruning it back and actually removing it from the system is the final step. Another thought--if ever something was to go wrong, and that huge basketball sized mass of chaeto in your fuge died overnight--all that phosphate and nitrate consumed by that mass would be immediately liberated--reintroduced into the water. That would set off a nuisance algae outbreak that you'd rather not ever experience.

In your position, I'd think it'd be be best to prune your actively growing macroalgae. If it ever slows in rate of expansion, then that's probably a good sign. The goal of keeping reef corals is to have water that is as nutrient free as possible.

Just my opinion.

 

1+ to reefsparky he is very knowledgeable