Dragons breathe algae - dying?

[Tarrant]

I got a piece that is about 3"x3"x3" once in the water. I attached it to a rock fairly high up in my tank with an elastic band. It seems to be dying off.
By that I mean pieces at the edges in some areas are turning grey and look like it's rotting away until nothing but the fibrous scaffolding is left waving in the current.

At first I thought these might be holdfasts it was putting out but that clearly now seems to not be the case.

What could be likely causes of this?
Too much light? Too little light? Too low nitrates/phosphates?
Any suggestions on things that commonly are a problem or which help with this type of macro?
Thanks!

 

[SushiGirl]

Could be any of those things. We used to have our fuge literally packed with the stuff under LEDs. A macro showed up in the DT & started competing with it so it started dying off. We then pulled all of the other macro & it still died off, probably because my boyfriend keeps putting phosphate remover in it. Ours, IMO, wasn't getting enough nutrients. The other macro has since filled up our 10g QT tank :lol:.

It's very hard to get Dragon's Breath to attach to rocks. Ours would barely attach & any flow would pull it right off. It just rolled around in the fuge like chaeto.

 

[Tarrant]

I used a small elastic hair band to hold it to a promontory of rock so it's sticking there well it just seems to be withering away. Lots of nutrients but maybe it's getting outcompeted.

 

[Whiterabbitrage]

Have you tested your iron?

 

[Tarrant]

I have not. I didn't realize that was even something to keep an eye on.

 

[SantaMonica]

Macro's do use a lot of iron.

 

[tektite]

Did it ever do good? How long ago did you get it in? What are your nitrate and phosphate levels?

 

[Tarrant]

I figured out the problem: I'm a moron.

The grey thready material that I believed to be the dead fibrous skeleton of the dying Dragon's Breath was really a weird greyish hair algae.

I picked it all off and the Dragon's Breath is doing great!
Though apparently I should look into supplementing iron...