High Tide Aquatics

DBTC - Chaeto

R

richiev

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Just creating a DBTC to track free chaeto for people. I know I was looking for this when joining, and many people offered. Now that I have mine growing out, I figured I'd create a DBTC to make it easier for the next person.

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No rules. No chain. If you find a way to get some Cheato and sell it, I congratulate you. Anyone can add their chaeto as available if they want to just add it in here. I'm not sure if that requires me to add people as frags, so if so we can figure it out.
 
H2OPlayar said:
Yes, throwing out a bunch every week in Sunnyvale. A freshwater soak for 5 minutes should get rid of what you don't want from my tank.
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As a dorky experiment I did a bunch of "what can chaeto withstand" tests when I was setting up my tank. I read online you can soak it for hours and it'll survive. I can confirm that's true, however it does cause some die off. Red Ogo I know did not handle a dip as well, but I can't recall if it all died or just mostly did. I had kept some ogo undipped just in case, so I'm not sure which survived.

I didn't care since I then tossed mine into a Rubbermaid with pods to grow for a bit, but be aware there's a bit of a chance of a nutrient spike from doing a RODI dip. I have no idea how much; I didn't measure. Eventually the chaeto will eat whatever it let off, but not necessarily before something else (GHA) does. But you're not really worse off on that situation, so :shrug:.

If I was starting over and wanted to again be paranoid I'd probably dip it all for awhile, say 20 minutes, then put some in my tank, and let the rest sit in a cup of saltwater for a day or two. I'd add it in after that.

Also, importantly, if you dip it you need to rinse it. If you want to be paranoid look over the strands you're moving. You will kill all pods and asterina stars and any flatworms and ... with the dip; that's the goal. However if you then put all that in your tank you're now putting all that dead stuff directly into your water column, which will slowly decompose.
 
Just copying my message from https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/lf-macro-algae-light.31203/post-451045 in here so I can find it in the future:

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I ended up getting some additional chaeto from California Reef last weekend. So if you want to pick some up in Redwood City you're welcome to, though I'm out of town for the weekend.



The chaeto I had gotten from @h20playar I had growing in an old glass milk jug with grow lights wrapped around it, some old tank water I'd rotate in, and an air line for water movement. This was while I experimented with various dipping and growing processes. That was going well, until I let that bottle sit by itself.



Turns out if you have lights wrapped around that bottle it gets hot enough that it effectively cooked/nuked the Chaeto. Oops. It probably would've came back, but enough died that when I saw more at the store I just bought some.



I will say if you want to be highly protective about what's going on your tank, the chaeto and red ogo can stand a very long freshwater dip with minimal downside. I read about it online, and I did a multi hour dip while running errands, and it was fine enough afterwards that it was certainly growing. That obviously kills any copepods/amphipods, but also kills all the brittle stars, asterina stars, flatworms, flukes, who knows that might be floating in it. Not that all those are bad, but if you want control you can do the long dip. I have no idea what that would do to ich, fluke, velvet, ... spores, but certainly does more than just tossing the Chaeto into the sump.



My current experiment:

1. Get chaeto

2. Rip off a chunk, put main chunk in saltwater for temp storage as a future experiment set

3. For other chunk, grab any visible amphipods/stuff you want to save and toss them into a separate container. Spray chunk with RO, then drop it into a cup of RO.

4. Go do something else for however

5. Take RO chunk out, rinse again, pick off anything if you want, toss into that saltwater container with pods

6. Fill container with some tank water

7. Dump some of my pod culture into it, adding some more pods and whatever is in the phyto (phosphates + nitrates in there too)

8. Wrap container with grow lights.

9. Put that container in a random Rubbermaid I have with water at the bottom, acting as a heatsink. Drop an airline in for water movement.

10. Toss some flakes or other food in there for extra nutrients and the pods

11. Wait



After all that, I believe it's left with some super clean Chaeto that even will have a pod population. The extra wait is just to make sure anything that died in the dip falls off or disappears. That includes all the hair algae and such that would've died.



Is it worth it? Meh. Is it a fun experiment with little to no cost and lets me feel like a biologist? Most definitely.



It's definitely better than just tossing random LFS Chaeto in. The California coral Chaeto looked pretty clean (just pods + asterina stars), but the Chaeto I've seen at other LFS has been full of aptasia and stuff. I'm sure the algae barn stuff is good too, but paying $29 + shipping for a garbage plant is ridiculous.
 
And also from my research from all the other macro quarantine threads out there, ich/fluke/... nematocysts can't attach macro algae. The dipping and quarantine would be about already hatched pests, and rinsing things out. The RO dip should theoretically do the trick there, but you of course need to make sure you rinse the saltwater off before dipping so that you have an actual RO dip not just a low salinity brackish dip.
 
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