Having trouble growing plants in refugium

[reefkeeperZ]

Golf coast ecosystems sells macros... when you click on a macro it tells you if it needs bright lights, the lower light ones require 6500k (sorry I added a w before), but according to the macroalgae book they need at least a grow light. At any rate I'm not an expert, and folks have posted that they only needed a regular bulb.
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they are listing the best option lighting for it, and definitely recommending a more light suitable is appropriate, but its not that you can't grow them under different spectrums, say you use 550nm bulb almost pure yellow you would need a lot more wattage to equal the amount of par in other ends of the color spectrum of a lower wattage, so (this is a rough equivalency not an accurate math product=> say a 35w 65k will grow equal to a 200w 550nm, better use of energy to use the appropriate bulb but it can be done.

 

[bang guy]

I think each macroalgae is different as well. Red seems to do best with more blue light and green seems to do better with more yellow light. For Chaetomorpha algae I've had the best growth with an incandescent halogen light. I think it likes the extra heat.

I used to harvest 6 gallons of Caulerpa racemosa a WEEK! this was under old VHO lights that I replaced from the display tank.

 

[reefkeeperZ]

I remember when I ran nothing but VHOs on my tanks till the bulbs became nearly impossible to find locally. I sitll have 2 icecap 660-009 ballasts out in the back room

 

[flower]

he's sort of splitting hairs (probably to clarify or make it easier for the person he's responding to to understand), frogspawn feed by holding the tentacles in the current and trapping particles and microfauna by shooting it with nematocyst, filtering the water that flows through its tentacles for chunks big enough to stab and trap. same for a lot of anemone, He's over defining filter feeder to a sub category that doesn't really exist but we use in a general way in the hobby like calling cyanobacteria an algae even though it is in fact a bacteria. Any sessile (can't move) creature that feeds on what flows to or through its specialized appendages is technically a filter feeder (some motile ones too like clams) . On the other hand a fish hunting prey would be a motile predator which corals are definitely not. mushrooms like discosomas feed by using their sticky slime coat to trap bacteria and digestible organic particles in the slime then they consume the slime. sponges pass water through channels and use specialized cells to trap the right particles inside for digestion, clams suck water in and pass it through a (for lack of better word) screen. All are various methods of filter feeding. the difference would be the size of prey desirable and organic make up (zoo vs phyto etc) people loosly (and incorrectly) use the term filter feeder only for the group that feeds on the smallest organisms even though its correct for a far larger assortment of creatures.

technically the baleen whale is a filter feeder too.... (crazy huh)

Very interesting.... I was using the term filter feeder only for the group that feeds on the smallest organisms. I never cease to learn from this site. Thank you, and you dummied it down enough for me to understand it too.

 

[reefkeeperZ]

Very interesting.... I was using the term filter feeder only for the group that feeds on the smallest organisms. I never cease to learn from this site. Thank you, and you dummied it down enough for me to understand it too.

And that is the generally accepted way to use the term, it makes it easier for people to understand the needs of the very specialized feeders of some, like sponges and tunicates, or obligatory feeders like gorgonians (as in they are obliged to feed because a lot of them cannot photosynthesize, and thus rely on the food alone).

And you are welcome, I love sharing information and teaching (probably why I teach for a living now, though not a teacher in the classic sense of school or institution).