Too much light in Refugium?

TomToro

The Old Guy
Oct 21, 2006
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Michigan
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Am I using too much light?

I'm having some trouble growing caulerpa in my cpr aquafuge 25". I'm running it with a maxi 600. Not much movement in there. It just wilts and rots. First it turns yellow. The red just disintegrates.

I have the feather caulerpa, a red fleshy type and just put in some Cheato.

I'm using 2 55w pc 10000k that I run around 14 hours\day.
Thanks,
Tom

water parameters and good except nitrates are around 10-15ppm. Even phosphates are nil or so says my tester.
calcium 500 +
alk 8.7dkh
salinity 1025
Thanks,
Tom
 
I'm not sure if you have too much light, but I'll tell you what I use to light our refugium, which was made out of a 20g high aquarium... I use 2 15w 10000K T8 bulbs. They run for 12 hours each day. Our macro grows like a weed (we have a mix of cheato and razor caulurpa).

Otherwise, your calcium is a bit high -- 450 is pretty much the upper limit of the range most people shoot for. It'll come down on it's own as your coralline algae, snails, and corals take it up; so no real action is needed (beyond not dosing any additional calcium until it falls).
 
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