Cheato/pod question

I have a ball of cheato in my sump, and it doesn't seem to grow. I read all these posts about people giving away cheato cause it grows so fast. I have a light over it that runs about 8 hours at night. I have a deep sand bed with live rock in that section of the sump.

Also, I don't seem to be getting many pods. I bought a bottle of them from the LFS a couple of months ago, you could visually see a bunch of pods in the bottle, but they don't seem to be multiplying in the sump.

Last, I'm getting this black mildew on the inside of my cabinet where the sump is. Do I need to put a small fan in there for circulation, or open up the backside of the cabinet? It seems awful humid in there.

Thanks

 

the chaeto will grow at different rates depending on how much nutrients are in your water. if your water is very clean and your skimmer is taking alot of the waste. the chaeto growth will be slow. the idea is just with the skimmer, chaeto algae, and water changes they all work together to keep phosphates/nutrients low. im not sure about the pods my clump of cheato is full of all kinds of little critters. you may just not be seeing them. try shining a flashlight into your refugium area after dark and see if a flock of pods come running to the light...thats what they do in my fuge. it wouldnt be a bad idea to put a small fan down there to keep ventilation.

 

can you post a pic of the sump and the mold, its either a splashing issue or a ventalation issue as you mentioned.

 

Here's a couple of pics of the sump/fuge:

You can see the black mold on the back wall.





Mold inside door:

 

I'd suggest having holes drilled in the back of your stand. Right now, your stand is acting like a junior high's boys locker filled with sweaty socks. You need somewhere for the moist air to leave. A lot of stands have open backs for this purpose.

 

Kind of what I thought, it's humid down there with it enclosed. What do you think would help with the cheato/pod growth? I currently have a 5000K floodlight over it.

 

The water seems pretty clean, I've got a AquaC Remora skimmer that seems to be working pretty well. I'll try shining a light in there tonight.

 

Well your color temp is low enough to be right for it. I'd suspect it's that your water is very good and there just isn't enough nitrates/phosphates to really get the chaeto to grow fast. You must be careful with feeding and not have your tank heavily stocked. Slow growing chaeto with good water params isn't a bad thing.

 

Exactly! K+. The whole idea of the cheato is to keep your nitrates and phosphates down. It will eventually grow and there will be all kinds of algae growing in there. What type of light bulb are you using? 8 hours is a bit short on time try adding a couple more hours. Here's a couple pics of mine.

 

yup, Slocal has it right, the water cascading into the return area is creating a mist of moist air thats getting trapped under that shelf the light is clipped to. If you don't want to remove the back panel all together then I would drill a few ventilation holes along the top. Also you could cut a piece of glass or acrylic to lay over the return area of the sump, this will cause the moist air to condensate on the lower side of the cover instead of on the walls and doors of the cabinet.