Lighting Chaeto in refugium...

[Rarry]

Hello peoples, I'd like some opinions on how much light is needed to keep chaeto alive and healthy in a refugium. Im currently running a refugium with chaeto and an 11 inch 18 watt 50/50 pc light, is this enough wattage? I see lots of post from other reefers that say their chaeto is growing like crazy but I have yet to see any growth with mine. My refugium has pretty good flow and the chaeto tumbles around well enough. I've been keeping the algae for 2 months now and I havent seen a drop in nitrates... Nitrates-20 Ammonia-0 Nitrites-0 Any ideas??

[charlie]

IME, chaeto likes a little more lite than you are providing. When my sps tank was up, I was using 2-400w 10k lites and I harvested every week. Alot also depends on the bioload that you have. HTH

[Ninong]

You need whatever light it takes so that your chaeto grows fast enough that you can prune it every couple of weeks. The macroalgae removes nitrates and phosphates in the process of growing and removing this macroalgae from the system on a regular basis amounts to the physical exporting of nutrients.

[Rarry]

Thanks guys. Ok, so I need more lighting. I wish I had as much light as Charlie, but I cant afford a metal halide just for a refugium. I dont even have MH on my display. Any suggestions on a suitable refugium light? Oh btw my refugium is about 24"x10" wide. Its a lil hard to find a strong light that will fit well beneath my display.

[Ninong]

You can use almost any light that you can fit over the refugium. Some people even use cheapy lights from Home Depot. What I would suggest is simply a 24" long fixture that holds two 65w PCs. Don't get the 50/50 kind. Get both of them in daylight or at least one daylight and one 10,000K. You don't need actinic light for macroalgae. Macroalgae grows in relatively shallow water and receives a lot of sunlight.

The bottom line is that almost anything at all would be better than your present 18w 50/50 lamp. How much you feel like spending will pretty much dictate what you get but all you really need to do is increase the light intensity from what you have now.