Which light for chaeto!

In a hob CPR fuge with chaeto that is dwindling under both! The one on left is your typical 10 gal hood with 18w 18000k glo pro t8 bulb that says its for planted aquariums or the right one is a dual 13 w 6700k fuge light w daylight and blue actinic! I know the answer has to be 2 but why would the chaeto be struggling! Other macro and micro algae seems to be doing great! Coralline is growin good! Nitrate does float up to around 5ppm here and there(consequence of teaching a 7 year old how to help and him always thinking everything is hungry!) no son they just know if they act like a fool you feed them! Lol

 

Your chaeto depends on nutrients/light. Your second choice for light is great. My guess is low nutrients. The other macros may be out competing it for the available nutrients.

 

6700K is good. CFL or if you can find an LED, that should work. The glo 18000K is not typical 18000K and probably can grow some algae. It has a lot of actinic, but also a pinkish red hue, sort of like ATI purple+, but not quite as tricked out. If you wanted to keep algae in a display, it may be a good balance between color and growth, but for a fuge, I'd just stick with good ol, 6700K bulbs (actually anything from 5500K to 6700K should be fine). Could be nutrient limitation though too. If other algaes are out competing it for nutrients, they can starve it.

 

thanks for the help guys! The other macroalage are really just babies right now that i'm still not sure what they are! I read that chaeto likes good flow and the fuge has pretty low flow! Not real keen on putting a pump in there to increase it as i don't want to puree the pods and plankton im trying to produce! i'm reading on the other thread to maybe add some iron???

 

also gonna start running 24 hours to see if that helps!

 

Here r the lights!

 

What size is your intake pump? I upgraded my CPR Aquafuge2 medium, stock pump to an mj900. Little more flow, but not to much. You don't want a lot of flow in your fuge. You can tumble your chaeto by hand, it's what I do
My light is 13" 24w 10k cf. I run the light opposite of my DT lights for 6hrs.

 

hey nano, its the stock pump, thought i had a mj900 but was way off, its a 400! Think im gonna stick with these lights and just tumble every few days!


BTW the slim skim is gonna be here monday!

 

dont run the lights 24 hours for the chaeto... it seems counter-intuitive but chaeto only grows when theres no lights. Running the lights in the fuge while the lights in the DT are off and vice versa seems to work best, because then the chaeto will help level out the pH, as it raises a bit during the night

 

well that would explain things! i'll try it!