HELP, my Chaeto keeps dieing.

[yiliyang]

Hi:

I recently started to use a wet dry filter on my 55 gal mixed reef tank. I put some 1/2 pound of Chaeto algae in the part that does not have bio balls with a 2 inch deep live sand bed. I been using a 23 watt full spectrum light(looks like a thin Florescent light twisted into a ball) in a plant light fixture on it.

Last night I looked at it closely and found some portions of the chaeto have died. It turned transparent and soft, when I touched it, it disintegrated. This actually happened once before, I just assumed I have a bad strain of chaeto, but now it looks like it was me. My water parameters are a little off. My ammo and nitrite are not detectable, but my nitrate is around 60. I keep the water temp at 79-ish.

Does anyone here know what is going on? I have been told that chaeto never go asexual. I added a small powerhead in there to increase the water flow through the big ball of chaeto, would that solve my problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Yili

 

[jpa0741]

I had the same problem until I started adding kent iron, now it is growing great.

 

[Chad Vossen]

hmm, doseing iron might help, your light is just fine, it seems you would have some water flow on your algae.

i dose iron in my tank and when i first started, i noticed a huge increase in growth.