Feeding Cheato with skimmer "goo"

[Braailegend]

Hi,

I have weird question.

I have a Skimmer and small refugium in my sump. As the cheato in refugium grows, I remove it and add it to a separate tank 30L (incase some one was looking for some cheato).

I was thinking, seeing that cheato thrives on nutrients, I add my skimming go to that tank.

Will it feed the cheato or is there no real value in doing that? (Trying it at the moment to see what happens)

 

[Quintonv]

Do a search on the triton method,

As their concept is that your cheato should be in the first chamber so that the nutrients from the display first feed the cheato, then the rest gets sucked out by the skimmer.

Were you asking about the skimmate in the cup?

 

[Braailegend]

Do a search on the triton method,

As their concept is that your cheato should be in the first chamber so that the nutrients from the display first feed the cheato, then the rest gets sucked out by the skimmer.

Were you asking about the skimmate in the cup?

Yes, about the skimmate... and is in seperate tank, just to feed it, as that tank does not get to much water changes and takes the olde water from main tank, when it does. Nothing except cheato in there at the moment

 

[Dexter]

This to me sounds a bit counter productive.. If the tank doesn't have any nutrients just take the cheto out. And put it in the main tank. Much simpler imo

 

[Midasblenny]

Definitely throw the skimmate away and don't reuse for any purpose other than on the compost heap

 

[BarryRoux]

I would keep using old water from the tank and some iron supplement to keep it healthy.

 

[Dexter]

Just be carefull with iron... Get it wrong with certain fish and you will end up killing them

 

[RiaanP]

Cheato do tend to catch detritus rather effectively on their own. No need to get make it worst

 

[Soutman]

Some mixed comments here I see. I actually had a 50 liter blue drum that I grew chaeto in at my previous property and did exactly this. I had a pump running in the drum, did water changes on my tank and filled the drum with the old tank water and emptied the skimmer cup into the bucket only once a week. I used 2 x LED-PAR38-PG bulbs which I got from acdc. (I still have them lying in some cupboard somewhere)

It worked perfectly well. Only issue I had initially was that the pump I had was to weak and it did not move water enough so that the chaeto tumbled for it all to get light, but sorted that out with a larger pump.

I ran the lights 12 hours a day and the chaeto grew like crazy.