algae of the moment: Chaetomorpha

reefkprz

Active Member
hello again folks welcome to the fourth installment of rkZ's macro algae of the moment.
today kids we shall discuss Chaetomorpha.
here is a list of some different species for you, C. moniligera, C. antennina, C. crassa, C. linum, C. okamurae, C. aerea, C. brachygona, C. spiralis. I bet you didnt know there were that many types did you?
The one that we shall focus on for this article is Chaetomorpha crassa, this is the brillo pad looking cheato so prevalent in the hobby of marine tanks. This is a multicellular algae. It grows one cell next to another in a long chain forming the string like mass you see in the picture below. it is a fairly hardy algae.
This macro grows relatively fast with good light and ample flow, it seems to do best if it can tumble around in the current allowing light exposure to all sides, but it doesnt have to tumble. It is easy to harvest simply by ripping it apart. A good safe algae for denitrification purposes, it does not go sexual dumping nutrients back into our tanks.
It also makes a great home for copepod and other microfauna reproduction as the dense curls make it hard for predatory fish to penetrate the mass. C. crassa does not root so is generally easy to remove from a display should you desire to, though it can get tangled around stuff really easily.
it can be fed to some herbiverous fish as roughage but keep in mind most fish cant really digest it that well so its mostly just fibre passing through..... (like corn it comes out the same way it went in). dont consider it a great food, just roughage.
 

ifirefight

Active Member
Nicely done...however,you did not state the lighting requirements for this beauty. I tried some in my fuge with a 6500k swirly....Did not last for more than 2 months. I have heard of people using EVERY different type of lighting you can think of. Just wondered if there is an optimal light for this? Thanks
 
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