Chaeto is Dying

[Gustopher]

My chaeto isn't doing well. It's gotten smaller, dead/white spots on it and it looks like Cyano might be growing in the fuge area. I've found a bunch of forum topics with the same thing happening, but wanted your guys' advice on it.

It's only been in there probably a month or a bit more. I bought the daylight flood light from Home Depot that I read about people using and I have that on for about 14 hours a day (I turn it off from about 12-8am because the light comes out the back of the fish tank and I'd like the fish to have total darkness at night).

I did recently add a dual GFO/Carbon reactor and I've heard that it might be the cause, but it wasn't doing great even before that.

Any advice is welcome as I have some hair algae starting to grow in the display.

Other parameters are all in line:

PH = 8.2
Alk = 8.3-8.6
Ca = 420
Mg = 1400
Nitrate = 0.2
Nitrite = 0
Ammonia = 0
Sal = 1.025
Temp = 78
Phos = unreadable with the salifert test

 

[125mph]

I think your water params are fine.. It's not the GFO.. I run a phosphate reactor too and my chaeto is growing well.

How much wataflow do you have in your fug, and do you know what color the light is? I found that chaeto does best around 5000-6500K. When I switched the lights to 8000K my chaeto started getting smaller.. switched it back to 6500 and it doubled in size in three weeks.

If you have hair algae its probably nitrate or phosophate problem. I hate the salfin tests.. try another test kit.

 

[vitodog]

It might be that your tank is very low in nutrients. I was able to maintain chaeto as well as a few mangroves for over a year until I had to lower my nutrient level due to a GHA issue.