Chaeto Growth with Kessil H380

[magnetar68]

Sharing some progress on my Chaeto growth. This picture shows 6 weeks for growth with my Kessil H380. The sump on the LEFT (edited) is how my Chaeto had been for months: not really growing. In the past, I had good growth with a 12W Home Depot Daylight LED floodlight, but last year it stopped growing. My Nitrates were at about 40ppm. I upgraded to the small 9W Innovative Marine ChaetoMax Refugium LED (seen in left sump at top right). After 4 or 5 months and dosing some iron and iodine, this did nothing to improve my Chaeto. I then dropped $300 on the Kessil H380. After 6 weeks, I need to remove some Chaeto. Not only is the refugium completely full of Chaeto, but the Chaeto is thick and has a great green color.

 

[JVU]

Nice before/after pics

I have a similar experience, the H380 is awesome

 

[magnetar68]

I forgot to mention that the nitrates dropped from 40ppm to 20ppm. I thought I would see better nitrate reduction with this much Chaeto.

 

[tankguy]

I may upgrade. My crummy HD light does nothing. With what little chaeto I had it just withered away

 

[sfsuphysics]

Great job, I believe BRS did a chaeto grow test with various lights including the Kessil 1200 (?) basically 4 380s together. And yeah better light = much better growth. That said you dropped 20ppm over about a month and a half including all the nitrates you were putting into your system, I think that's pretty good wait another month and a half and see where you're at. Hopefully you don't get to a point where too low and it has detrimental effects.

 

[grizfyrfyter]

You will probably get to a point where it's capable of removing more nutrients than you're putting in. At that point, lower your light cycle on the fuge.

I use a $60 led I got from Amazon and it works amazing. Advertised as 200w (because it has a pair of 100w pucks) but is only pulling 100w through the apex. It's a lot bigger unit that the kessil and is an on/off light but I throw out half a gallon of chaeto a week.

 

[Flagg37]

You will probably get to a point where it's capable of removing more nutrients than you're putting in. At that point, lower your light cycle on the fuge.

I use a $60 led I got from Amazon and it works amazing. Advertised as 200w (because it has a pair of 100w pucks) but is only pulling 100w through the apex. It's a lot bigger unit that the kessil and is an on/off light but I throw out half a gallon of chaeto a week.

Yeah lessening the light schedule or harvesting more, more often will work too.

 

[grizfyrfyter]

Yeah lessening the light schedule or harvesting more, more often will work too.

I hadn't thought of that. Keeping algae bioload low reduced how much it can uptake. Thanks for the info.

 

[Mozby]

You will probably get to a point where it's capable of removing more nutrients than you're putting in. At that point, lower your light cycle on the fuge.

I use a $60 led I got from Amazon and it works amazing. Advertised as 200w (because it has a pair of 100w pucks) but is only pulling 100w through the apex. It's a lot bigger unit that the kessil and is an on/off light but I throw out half a gallon of chaeto a week.

Card to share what light that is? My current grow light doesn’t seem to be doing the job.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[grizfyrfyter]

Card to share what light that is? My current grow light doesn’t seem to be doing the job.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Waterproof 200W LED Grow Light... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0776R69WH?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Reviews have a few reports of it crapping out after a few months.

I've been running it for about 8 weeks and it grows chaeto and culpera like mad.

 

[Wlachnit]

This what I use
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XC3LBI2/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

When the Chaeto grows, it's at least 1/2 gal/wk. Sometimes it doesn't grow fast...not sure why that is, but probably lack of nutrients if I had to guess.