is this normal for chaeto?

what about the color temp? will it matter? the most i can find at hd and lowes is about 3000K temp.

 

which ones will be better
this one? 85 Watt Spiral <b>8,000</b> Hour / 5000K: Light Bulbs Etc, Inc.

or this? TCP 68 Watt (300W) SpringLight Soft White 1 Pack (E)* - 28968RP at The Home Depot

 

Your chaeto is turning white or brown because it is dying. Chaeto is a type of macro algae. Like other algae, good or bad, it is competing for nutrients in your tank. The reason why it is a good tank inhabitant is because it takes up the nutrients before bad algae competing for the sane nutrients can. Chaeto is easy to trim and to maintain. Much easier to control than hair algae and brown algae. Im going to take a stab and say that you introduced chaeto into your sump because you were having a hard time controlling algae in your DT? Strong PH swings is also known to kill it as well as dosing into a chamber that contains it. If you see brown diatoms over the areas that are turning white, it is being choked out and is not being provided the nutrients is needs to survive. A light change will not help the situation. I suggest fixing your algae problem if you have one in the dt until the chaeto can grab a hold of what it needs.

 

I've been using a Philips 75W plant bulb I get from home depot with no problems. I have to cut the cheato periodically as it grows bigger. I use a clip on light that I bought at HD. Look for Plant Light it's a flood type light. The other thing is you could have too much water flow in the fuge I've been told that by an experienced hobbyist because the cheato needs time to do it's job and if there is way too much flow because of your set up than that could be it. I don't know about a 40W bulb? That's the first time I've heard about it being used in a fuge. Again it could be your water parameters..

 

yes and no.
yes you are correct and i suspect that it is dying also.
no in the algae sense that i don't even have a small part that has algae on my tank. not in the main tank nor in the sump area not even a hair algae. i have diatoms in the refugium area and they are brown that prompt me to put some cuc in there this morning.
this is the reason i am baffled. i have no algae that can compete with the chaeto for nutrients and you mention that changing the bulb will have no effect and my ph is pretty much stable to 8.2 for i am using a buffer.

i have run out of possible cause for them dying.

 

Good point on flow Marlinman. I had to tweak that a bit on mine until I found a sweet spot.
I still would try a new bulb too. My 2 cents.

 

Totally disagree, I went from a 65 watt 5100K bulb to a 150w 6500k Full spectrum bulb I bought from Home depot or lowes and I can't give enough of mine away fast enough it grows so fast.

Plus if its in the fuge and the fuge is hooked to the Display tank the water is the same which means the nutrients are the same and Cheato gets it nutrients from the water.

When he put the other algae in the DT it was in better light hence it grew and regained its color.

Try another bulb, I got mine from Home Depot, its a 150w Compact Fluorescent 6700k bulb cost me 6 bucks and I have it in one of those Aluminum Clamp on fixtures.

As far as flow goes, mine in in the same part of the fuge that the water come into the fuge and there is a pretty good amount of flow, enough to move a basketball+ sized ball of it around pretty good.

EDIT: I could not find it n the home depot page but here is the bulb I am talking about. I might have gotten it from Lowes not HD. I am also using these on my frag tank fuge, but they are only 75 or 85 watt so I am using 2 of them.

 

i will try and do this.
i have 1200gph dual 1" bulkhead for my overflow which one bulkhead has a gate valve controlling the water passing to the sump and the refugium and the other bulkhead goes straight to the sump. the valve is wide open which makes at least 10% of the flow goes to the refugium. so i am assuming that i am getting at least 60-120gph water flow in my refugium. is that too much flow for a refugium?
on the other hand i am on my way to HD to look for a high wattage bulb. hopefully i can turn things around this time.
thank you all

 

good luck either way!

 

this is what baffled me. i put the other algae in my DT and it regained it's color but here is the catch. i have a better lighting for my refugium than my DT. i only have an old T10 lighting in my DT ;D (i know it's pathetic, my marineland marine series pro is month away from purchase).

would you happen to remember what the product number for the bulb you used? thank you very much.