how to really make the chaeto spin!

[cmbspd]

I saw a few posts by RCs lamenting that they couldn't get their chaeto to spin in their refugia. I just made a minor plumbing mod that changed my fuge from no movement to about one revolution every few seconds.

All I did was add a 45 degree angle pvc to the bulkhead feeding the fuge (just stuck it on without cement or tape). This pushes the water at a slight angle along the wall and toward the back corner of the tank. This sets up a great spiral flow and spins my algae like crazy!

Hopefully this helps someone else out.

[nimrod]

mine just sits there and seems happy along with my little critters crawling all over. i'll bet your pods are dizzy.

[Aquarist007]

can you post a picture of this?

[jbird69]

does it spin or tumble?

[evoracer]

Doesn't need to spin or tumble. I grow it out for distribution amongst fellow reefkeepers and it just sits there. I will manually turn it over every few days when I check on it, so the bottom side gets equal light.

[spleify]

Sounds like a cool idea you came up with. But I agree it is not necessary fo rit to spin or tumble. I flip mine once a week usually when I harvest it. I usually pull out half a 5 gallon bucket once a week then turn the pile over.

Thanks for sharing your ideas!!

[lordofthereef]

Originally Posted by evoracer

Doesn't need to spin or tumble. I grow it out for distribution amongst fellow reefkeepers and it just sits there. I will manually turn it over every few days when I check on it, so the bottom side gets equal light.

The point of having it tumble is so you don't have to go in and manually flip it. FWIW mine just sits there and I do no manual flipping except maybe when I am harvesting some to toss and it grows just fine.

[mcclandy]

i have heard anthony calfo suggest something like this. I think his idea was to add a strip along the top of a baffle to get more surface movement in the refugium than toward the bottom. In otherwords, blowing water across the top of the chaeto to get it to tumble.

[Playa-1]

You can use a powerhead to tumble Chaeto within the fuge.

[Aquarist007]

Originally Posted by spleify

Sounds like a cool idea you came up with. But I agree it is not necessary fo rit to spin or tumble. I flip mine once a week usually when I harvest it. I usually pull out half a 5 gallon bucket once a week then turn the pile over.

Thanks for sharing your ideas!!

Agreed, if you are manually flipping it and harvesting it then there is no need to tumble it.
The concept here is that chaeto best up takes nitrates and phosphates when it is growing. So the aim is to keep the chaeto growing
Harvesting is probably the best way to do that. However when you harvest rip the ends the chaeto and spread the rest over the surface.A damaged plant will quickly grow to heal itself so you are stimulating the growth rate
Dosing with iron will occasionally work.
Allowing a dark time or down time from photosynthesis. Most reefers want to run the lights 24/7 however after a few months the chaeto could start to die back and look lighter green--these are signs that indicate stress and thus not maximum growth

Finally you don't need alot of chaeto--rather a smaller amount that you have growing rapidly. So if you harvest it, thin it out, stimulate it to grow you do not need to tumble it

That said the chaeto can get clogged with other detrius which can cut down surface gas exhange on the chaeto.If this is a problem then I can see tumbling it. Another method is to crank up the flow through the fuge, shake the chaeto in the fuge and give a good feed of copopods back to the tank.

I am interested as Spleify is in new ideas however and would still like to see a picture of this

[cmbspd]

Here it is. I originally added the elbow piece just to quite down the water. The chaeto spins, tumbles, and moves around the tank now. I'm sure that this has been "invented" many times before. I was just really impressed by how such a simple mod changed the chaeto's behavior.