chaeto ?

My chaeto is not doing so well... i just set up my refuge, but it does not look like it is doing so well... any suggestions on getting it to thrive, i have it under a 50w reptile day light bulb, which i was told is fine for chaeto

 

How did you set the refugium up and what size is it and what size tank is it supporting ?

 

What Tangster asked , and how long has your tank been going ? How long have you been using that type of bulb? Do you have live stock? I am using a cfl sylvania bulb that I bought at lowes. It is 6500k and my cheato is exploding !!!

 

If you are skimming your water before it goes into your refugium (like you mentioned in your other thread), you're most likely starving your chaeto to death.

 

I concure . I was unaware of another thread mentioning thingy. Lol ! :

 

I saw that thread and did not connect the names until now .. I started to see the people talking about prefiltering the refugiums water last yr or so I knew right then it would slowly catch on just sounds so cool LOL My fuges look like a nasty stank swamp .. But they do their jobs .

 

My lfs fuges look rather swampy . Sometimes I am scared to walk by them for fear of an aligator popping out lol! Skim after fuge is the moral.

 

about pre filtering the water before it goes to the refuge... the water that goes into the skimmer is not all being filtered, bad water still comes out... or else we would run the skimmer for an hour to let it filter all the water in the tank and be done with it

 

What you are saying must make sense to you But in the real world if you think that the water coming from the skimmers outlet is not being filtered of DOC's then who ever told you that was severely misinformed . As for running a skimmer a hr aday why Fish make waste all day long 24/7 and that has to be pulled out. You said the cheado is dying ? then lack of DOC's would cause that as it lowers to Nitrates and Phosphate inducing waste from the water.. Thats the stinky sludge in the skimmers cup.. But if you think that a skimmer is not filtering water then there not much info I could offer you . Maybe I could understand your point a little easier if you could explain the theory of a skimmer not being a filter or a device not capable of removing waste from the saltwater . Nuff said by me maybe someone else can shed some different light on this skimmer theory Good luck with it.

 

You don't need to prefilter your fuge water. You are removing nutirients that are meant for whatever you have in the fuge. As far as the skimmer, say you are running an inefficient skimmer and some of the water coming out of the outlet was still "dirty", the waste will either recirculate to the fuge (if you weren't filtering it) or back in to the skimmer eventially getting filtered out. My LFS told me that chaeto needs some current as well so maybe a small powerhead would help.