chaeto dead?

[Fishnewb1]

i just recently cleaned out my refugium and i thought that i could clean it out by running it under the shower for a little bit... Well now it doesnt seem to be doing anything and its covered in cyano.

is it dead? do i need to buy some more?

[TheOldSalt]

What???

You ran your fuge under the showerhead to clean it and now you're wondering why it doesn't work anymore?

Is this a joke?

[Fishnewb1]

no i cleaned it with fresh water from the shower in a bucket. I thought that since it is a plant it wouldnt be affected by a little freshwater... i didnt leave it in a running shower. it was just a figure of speach 4 cleaning. bad usage...

yea its dead... i thought the reason for all of my algae was because of the dirty chaeto so i used freshwater since i didnt have any saltwater to clean it off with...
stupid i know.

[CollegeReefer]

big difference between saltwater plants and freshwater plants. Your freshwater wash killed the actually macro and anything micro fauna living it it. IF you wanted to rinse it should have been in saltwater from your tank.

[Fishnewb1]

i know that now......

[TheOldSalt]

There is a big difference between macroalgae and actual vascular plants. No, I take that back; there are many big differences between them. Plants do most of their transpiration going from roots to leaves, that it, they take in food & water frim their roots and "exhale" through their leaves.
Algaes do not have roots, or leaves, and they don't have a vascular system. They are arranged in such a way as each individual cell is exposed to the outside water for direct interaction. This is a good enough method for it, but it leaves the algae at the mercy of it's environment. When individual cells are exposed to an osmotic pressure significantly different from what they're used to, they will either lose all their fluids or take on so much that the cells rupture. When marine cells are put into freshwater, the fresh water rushes into those cells, bursting them. It doesn't take very long, either.
This is why you can't wash macroalgae in freshwater.

The good news is that it's entirely possible that some survived, and if you break up your cheetobrick so as to expose as much of it to the light as possible, any surviving bits may well spring back and regrow.

Wash your brick, if you still have it, in a bucket of SALT water, and if you have some anti-cyano stuff, use it in a separate container for awhile. Then put any promising looking bits back into your fuge.

That'll take awhile, though, so you might want to just get more chaeto.

By the way, why did you decide to clean out the fuge in the first place? Normally you wouldn't want to touch it. NOW you DO, though, or else you'll just have a cyano problem, so clean it out and RESTART it before adding any new chaeto.

[Fishnewb1]

ok. well i have had a bad algae outbreak for about 3 months now(ever since football season started and i slacked with my water changes).So now i have been doing 2 waterchanges a week since. and its been so frustrating now that my once beautiful tank turned into a algae farm... Well all of my corals are fine, but my sponge is dying and my corals have no room to grow. Well so when i got so frustrated after using a whole bucket and a half of salt i decided that i needed to clean my fuge. I wanted to clean it with saltwater but i wanted it to get somewhat clean for christmas when i have people over. So i just used fresh...

Thanks for the info it was really helpful. I can see what you are talking about in the chaeto. It was breaking up like you said, since the cells bursted.

well i threw out all of my algae since it was decomposing and probly producing more nitrates. I need to get some more from someone.

by cleaning out and restarting is that including just the chaeto or the chaeto and the sand?

[TheOldSalt]

And the sand, which is no doubt also ruined.

By the way, are you leaving the lights on 24/7 in the fuge?

[Fishnewb1]

but i didnt put freshwater in my fuge i took all of the algae out and put it in a bucket of water. The sand never got near freshwater.

The lights are only on when the display is off.

how long would you suggest to leave the display lights on when im combating with hair algae?

Could i use an algae remover product to aid in the process of getting rid of it?

[TheOldSalt]

Oh, okay then, the sand should be fine.

Switch to 24hr lighting to get rid of cyano and hair algae.
I wouldn't try an algicide when trying to grow chaeto.

[Fishnewb1]

so haveing 24hr lighting wont put stress on my fish & corals?

[TheOldSalt]

It'll cause HUGE stress on your fish & corals. The 24/7 lighting is only for the 'fuge, which should be blocked off, lightwise, from the tank.

[Fishnewb1]

oh ok lol i knew that couldnt be what u were talking about...

so how about the lights for my display i have them on for about 8 hours, is that good?

[TheOldSalt]

If you're trying to simulate wintertime, then 8hrs is fine. Alas, the tropics don't have winter, so go to 10. Well, wait until your algae is back under control, first, but yeah, raise it.

[Fishnewb1]

my fuge lights have been on 24/7 but it doesnt seem to help... now theres just a ton of algae on my chaeto....

[TheOldSalt]

Oops. Well, manually remove it until the cheeto can get going again. Did you get any more? You'll keep having the microalgae problem until you can get/grow enough macroalgae to get rid of it.

[Fishnewb1]

Oh yea i got some more chaeto from a friend. yea i will just keep removing it. Im leaveing the lights off for a while to remove some of it... Can I keep the lights off for a couple of days?

[TheOldSalt]

Yeah, but it won't do much good. The algae will only spring back when you turn them on again, and in the meantime you will have kept the chaeto in the dark, which isn't helping. Remove the algae by hand for better results.