Hair algae growing instead of cheato

[yakh0o]

Hi,

I converted my red sea 250 ATO to grow cheato, having a pump to pump the water into the ATO and let the water flow out/overflow slowly, i have a par38 (white, red, blue) light.

But i see the hair algae grow a lot faster than my cheato and caulerpa until covered them completely.

[R0B]

This is fairly common, given you just created the ideal place for algea to grow. Green hair algea tends to magically appear even in new tanks (a reason why you can run an ATS on a brand new tank but not a refugium). Luckily weight to weight it is actually extracting more nutrients then your chaeto. However, it can then starve your chaeto, so I suggest you remove as much as possible.

Here is a r2r thread on the same https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/hair-algae-outgrowing-chaeto-in-refugium.333294/

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[yakh0o]

Thanks R0B, now it is only left few caulepar and some hair algae inside the ATO.

will remove them again if they grow and cover the caulerpa.

[Beardedpig]

I had something fairly similar some water changes and prime helped


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[kasper]

try to use brightwell chaeto grow, works for me though

[SgReeferSuperSun]

Totally black out the tank. Coral can survive without light for 1 week.