The Puffer Forum

I have some chaetomorpha I picked up at a LFS about two or three weeks back. I was told that it's pretty hardy stuff and has been known to survive in even pretty low brackish water. I don't have a refugium yet, so I put it inside a floating three-way breeder I had laying around. I don't think I've seen any real growth out of it, but I also can't tell if it's dying since it is always green. I even took a small bit of it out and left it dry for a few days. The clump I took out is still green. The remaining amount in my tank is still like a Brillo pad, but I can pull it apart without too much effort. Should I just throw away my chaeto? Is there a definite way to tell whether my chaetomorpha is still alive? My salinity is at 1.016 at the moment.

Well, my experience with chaetomorpha so far is that it's slow growing, and when it dies, it just slowly disintegrates. Being able to pull it apart is normal, but yeah it should at least put up a little fight when you do it.

marksrush wrote:Well, my experience with chaetomorpha so far is that it's slow growing, and when it dies, it just slowly disintegrates. Being able to pull it apart is normal, but yeah it should at least put up a little fight when you do it.

Thanks for the info

Omg how can you kill chaeto!? It's like invincible .

pufferfreak wrote:Omg how can you kill chaeto!? It's like invincible .

Haha, that was my impression--but even when it's out of water, it's still green, so it's hard to tell when it's alive or not.

Mine got grey when it died.

Pufferpunk wrote:Mine got grey when it died.

Did you have to go out of your way to kill it or did it just naturally die?

I don't remember.