took about 5 minutes to do, after I found my drill bits, so just get a soapdish from walmart similar to this one, get yourself some chaeto, drill some holes, stick it in your tank and you’re good to go…
Soapdish from walmart: $2.97
Before Drilling:
Post Drilling:
In Tank:
Full tank:
It’s hardly even noticeable…and it’ll drop your nitrates down as well…plus it’s good for pods, so it’s cheap, easy, and it works…
Nice addition to the nano
I only have two fish in that tank now, my female clown lost her mate, he jumped the back wall and landed in the center on top of the plate covering the filtration, he did it in the middle of the night, I found him in the morning dead, the coral beauty is in the 29, and the blenny is history…I think I’m just going to leave it that way…
Looks good, but I doubt it will make a serious difference in the Nitrates. May grow some pods. Thing to remember is if you aren’t actively removing Chaeto that is actively growing your not removing a significant amont of waste. It does adds biodiversity and slight stablity to the tank and didn’t cost you much. Thanks for sharing.
Jon
Won’t hurt, definitely will help. If you can put it in a high turbulent area to tumble the cheato it will turn and grow faster. Pull it as it grows.
The amount of cheato is the same as I have for a 75-gallon in a 20L fuge. Now get some pods to seed it.
I’ve got a load of pods…
would you call this good growth? A week later…
Hum… hard to tell. Looks to be, but it could just be spreading out. Remove half of it take a picture and then lets see it again in a week. Have you tried some meathod of pushing more flow through it like Al suggested?
Jon
actually it’s more compact, I trimmed it the other day…it’s the best spot for flow in the tank…next to the koralia, by the intakes…
More spread out the better actually. If it is too compact light and flow doesn’t reach all spots and it doesn’t grow as rapidly. Maybe pull it apart a bit and spread it out. Try to keep track of how much you pull out.(on paper or on the computer not just from memory, lol) This may prove to be a significant Nitrogen remover, after all! Keep us updated.
Jon
it’s starting to grow over the dish now so I have to trim it again…it like got stuck in my koralia…so I’m gonna cut out half of it…I can watch my mandarin in the daytime, hanging out by it, eating pods…
I think it should be relatively efficient. I think light is a thousand times more important than flow. I dont grow much chaeto now, but when i did it was in a very low flow fuge and it grew like crazy!!
I think jons mentioned it before, but keep in mind that your not making any impact until you actually remove this stuff. I would at least tear out half at a time like jon mentioned as opposed to just trimming it. You may want to hold the clump in front of the powerhead before you toss it in an attempt to shake loose any critters that you dont want to accidently toss.
Looks good bro! Keep up the good work. When you setup the new 150 lemme know I’ll help out.
Good point about saving the critters. You could even go as far as Ken does and examine each piece with a magnifying glass and remove every pods, worm, snail, and star fish. I don’t know how long Ken spends doing this, but his tanks are fill of critters and the chaeto he gives to people is free from animal life.
Jon
aight jim, I will, the room that’s gonna be the fish room, used to be a laundry room, so there’s hot and cold running water, and a sink already in there…so I’m gonna stick an ro unit in there…and get a big drum from the guy in north east…
If someone tries this just make sure that you have enough flow through it that the light bulbs dont cook the stuff inside of it. I had a frag box similar to this one but it didnt get enough water flow and the temp was consistently 4-5 degrees higher than the rest of the tank.
Pretty cool addition! I’m sure it will help out a little, atleast give you a place for pods to grow. Seems like it is growing nicely, since your trimming it, your getting some nutrients outta it. as far as having it stretched out or compact, I’ve noticed when mine is compact, it grows a lot more. I have a HOB 19" fuge and started with a very small ball of cheato and within two months my fuge was so packed, water wasn’t even really flowing thru it anymore! I trimmed it and put it in my brothers 90g and it opened up to about a 2’ ball! I really think its the nutrients in your tank that has the biggest effect on growing the cheato. Here’s a pic of how it was, incredible, I couldn’t believe it!
Jeff, that’s over due for a trim that top area is leaching more then it is absorbing. Trim it out a lot. Cheato and most macros due more work when they are trimmed and exposed to light. At the thickness of your macro, no light is getting to the lower levels.
I’m about to trim it again man…it’s growing over…
Ha, I know I was way over due. But I was at the beach and wasn’t home. There was a light on it, I took it off for the pic. Believe it or not, the bottom was packed with algae too, it grew no matter where! Now that I am back, I have it under control. I have to trim it again though, less then a couple weeks and it’s already outta control.