Does chaeto grow?

[Hanali]

So I have had a clump of Cheato for almost a year and I swear nothing has grown or changed about it. So does it actually grow and what am I doing wrong?

My refuge has been setup since Dec and I placed some Calurpa in it and well it kind of disintegrated and died on me. The Chaeto is fine but not growing.

I had some Coralife Nano bulbs on it for 18 hours, then I switched to some "grow light". Nothing has changed. I have high Nitrates but it looks like it is because my top off is not RO/DI water but tap. (That should be fixed soon if UNDIY ever ships their ATO system almost 15 day after they removed my money. Sorry if they are a vendor but 15 days and the bank already took my money... please.)

So what am I doing wrong?

Thanks

[hobogato]

high phosphates can limit the growth of macroalgae (as well as corals), so that may be your issue (from the tap water or food you are giving you fish) problem is, you can test and get a reading of 0 for phosphates and still have high phosphates.

[Fish4life]

my cheato grows like crazy, i harvest it weekly. make sure you have adequate flow thru your fuge and consider what ace said.

cheers,

kurt

[Rychek]

Can high phosphates kill cheato? My cheato not only doesn't grow, it dies. I'm thinking tap water is my main culprit. That and I don't have any type of "grow light," just a fluorescent from a 20 gal tank. A RO/DI filter is (hopefully, depends on my wife and my budget) in my near future.

[txstateunivreefer]

try calerpa as well i have both the calerpa grows like wild and the cheeato is really slow to grow

[Bill S]

Like many things in this hobby, tanks seem to have a mind of their own. I have 2 virtually identical tanks, except size, and I can't grow Xenia or Clove Polyps or Zooanthids in my big tank.

Chaeto does grow slowly... I HATE caulerpa. I'm trying Mangroves now...

[coraline79]

I have had that clump of cheato you gave me Bill for about a month and a half. In the last couple of weeks I changed from grow light to one of those coil compact 100w equivalent bulbs and the cheato clump has almost filled my fuge. I was actually about to post here asking how much is too much cheato...anyone?

[brewercm]

The thing about Cheato is that it also grows in a ball form for the most part unless you have way too much flow going. This makes it look like it may not have grown as much as it has. But like Bill said it all has a mind of it's own. I know I've had several different caulerpas that at times have drowned out my cheato, lately it's been the opposite. Not really sure why but not really too concerned either as long as they are doing their job.
As far as thinning out goes. I usually don't "try" to let it get to more than about half to three quarters of my fuge in size. I have a fairly large fuge though so that may make a difference.
I have a cheapo 130 watt power compact light with very old bulbs. Don't really care about the spectrum but I think they are a 10K and 6.5K.