Frequently Asked Questions About Our Refugium-Boosting Clean Chaeto & Snacklerock

In the process of researching and culturing our Clean Chaeto, we came upon a surprising discovery - there are actually two main variants of chaetomorpha macroalgae. The late Jake Adams of Reefbuilders had made the same discovery - he called them the "brillo" and "fine" varieties. The most common variant found in the hobby, and the one you likely tried to grow, is the "brillo" variety. It's much more difficult to grow and much less forgiving.

The "fine" variant that we sell is an extremely fast grower and is quite forgiving of water conditions, flow, and lighting. There's a very good chance you'll succeed with our Clean Chaeto!

Dinkins Aquatic Gardens Clean Chaeto is very forgiving of water conditions, flow, and lighting. We suggest putting your chaeto in your refugium with a good amount of indirect flow. Direct flow can blow your chaeto apart, which you definitely don't want.

Put it under the strongest light you can. We use special refugium lights to grow it, but you can make a high-powered full spectrum shop light work quite well too.

Be sure you're dosing your tank with trace elements that include iron - we use Brightwell's ChaetoGro.

You bet! Just wedge your clump of Clean Chaeto into a spot with high light and strong indirect flow, and your chaeto should grow just fine in your display tank. Chaeto isn't very tasty to fish, so they will likely leave it alone!

No. Tumbling is ideal because it exposes all sides of the Clean Chaeto to light, and it helps prevent detritus from building up in the chaeto. But manual flipping of your chaeto a couple times a week is more than fine!

Once your Clean Chaeto starts to fill the area of your sump that you want it to stay in, remove about 1/3 of it and give to a local reefer, sell to your LFS, or discard.

Clean Chaeto comes loaded with both live copepods and live amphipods. Once you add it to your refugium, your chaeto will become a magnet for more pods to grow and inhabit.

It generally isn't necessary to move pods from your sump to your tank; they will migrate off your chaeto and into your return chamber periodically. If you want to accelerate this process, you can always remove part or all of your chaeto and give it a gentle swirl at the top of your display tank.

Clean Chaeto improves the health and stability of your reef tank by reducing your nutrients and supporting your microbiome. Chaeto consumes nutrients like nitrate and phosphate as it grows, locking those nutrients in its tissue. This is a totally natural way to reduce nitrates and phsophates in your reef tank.

Clean Chaeto also supports your microbiome by hosting a wide variety of microfauna, including the all-important live copepods and live amphipods that are at the heart of the reef food chain. This directly supports increased biodiversity, as microfauna have the ideal home to inhabit and grow upon.

Dinkins Aquatic Gardens Snacklerock is live rock rubble which has been aquacultured in a fishless system with only live copepods, live amphipods, live phytoplankton, and live nitrifying bacteria.

Our process is pretty straightforward. We source live rock rubble from Marco Rocks and add it to a system containing fresh saltwater and nothing else. We them dose the system heavily with Fritz Turbostart 900 nitrifying bacteria and feed it daily with small amounts of ammonia. After a week, we begin adding very large doses of live copepods and live phytoplankton. We continue this process daily, keeping the bacteria fed with ammonia and the copepods fed with live phytoplankton.

We leave the rock in these tanks for at least three months before it's ready to sell.

Simply temp-acclimate your new Snacklerock and pour it in! Most reefers will probably put it in their refugium, but it can go in your display tank if you prefer. Please do add the water that came in the jar - it's filled with live copepods and may even include some live amphipods.

Once opened, your jar of Snacklerock should smell like the ocean. If the bacteria or pods died in transit, your jar will smell foul - like skimmate or death. In that case, discard it and send us an email so we can replace the Snacklerock under our no-hassle Dinkins Delivery Guarantee.

The good news is that our Snacklerock is exceptionally resilient and survives shipping more than 99% of the time.

Each piece of Snacklerock rubble is between the size of a marble and a golfball.

Snacklerock cycled and seeded live rock rubble improves the health and stability of your reef tank by significantly boosting your reef's biodiversity. It is cycled with a diverse array of nitrifying bacteria and is seeded with live Apocyclops, Tisbe, and Tigriopus copepods.

Snacklerock also supports your microbiome by hosting a wide variety of microfauna, including the all-important live copepods and live amphipods that are at the heart of the reef food chain. This directly supports increased biodiversity, as microfauna have the ideal home to inhabit and grow upon.