Macro Algae (chaeto) not looking so good.

[mnestroy]

For some reason my Macro Algae (chato) isnt looking very healthy.

Its becomming brittle and the brittle strings are white and are falling lose with very little effort.

I don't think I changed anything so many something else has changed?

I use one bulb that Melevs suggest on his site, and another one from home depot, had good growth for 1yr.. could the bulbs being going bad? they are about a yr old.

One last question, do people get best results when they just leave the light on 24/7 in their sump? been doing that for method since i started.

 

[rppvt]

no. not 24/7 it doesn't give the algae down time. You'd do better having it on a reverse cycle with your tank and add a bit of iron supplement. Mine was on 24/7 for a while and started to dwindle away. Then I figured out the deal (actually somebody here helped me out, I think).
Try a cycle. See if that works.

 

[Sk8r]

I run my small HO light on it for 20h, 4 hr off. The cheato is dark green and very vigorous.

Do however be suspicious of any bulb over a year old. Some bulbs are done after 6 mos. In this hobby, don't wait for bulb to burn out: they change output much before that event, and will have things going bad for some time before they ever burn out.

 

[Hop]

I would cut back the brittle dead parts and do about a 12 hour light cycle, opposite of the tank's lighting as mentioned above. Personally I would see how this does before adding iron supplementation.