Coraline algae? But chaeto dies.

[Redleg]

I think this is coraline algae. I also noticed some purple spots in the glass as well. My problem is that I wasn't trying to grow it. I put 2 cups of chaeto in 10 days ago and it's almost completely disintegrated. This is the second time it's happened. The first batch lasted about 14 days.
My LFS where I bought it suggested increasing my lighting from 10 hours to 14 hours. I'm running a marsaqua light with just the white channel. 5 days into the new lighting schedule I started getting brown film algae on the glass and patches of green algae on the rocks. At that point I added 10 astrea snails. Now the chaeto has almost completely melted away.
Today was tank maintenance day. I tested water and had ammonia at 0.5ppm. This is my first reading above 0 in 6 weeks.
0 nitrites api
160 nitrate api
Phosphorus at least 200ppb. Maxed out my hanna ulr.
Alk is 7.8 hanna
Ph is 8 api.
I did a 25% water change today and plan on doing another tomorrow. To deal with the high nitrates and phosphate. As you can see from the pics I went from a decent sized ball of chaeto to a few shreds. What can I do differently to grow chaeto?

 

[grassy_noel]

I could be wrong, but it looks like your light is over the center chamber, but your chaeto is on the right side. If that's the case, is there a reason? It's possible that your chaeto is not getting enough light. Based on your testing, it is surely not starving due to lack of nitrate or phosphate nutrients.

 

[Dennis McGrath]

Are you using anything like GFO or Phosguard to bring down those PO4 numbers?

 

[Redleg]

I could be wrong, but it looks like your light is over the center chamber, but your chaeto is on the right side. If that's the case, is there a reason? It's possible that your chaeto is not getting enough light. Based on your testing, it is surely not starving due to lack of nitrate or phosphate nutrients.

That's actually a picture of the first try with chaeto. I was trying to keep it out of the wave pump. The second go went into the middle and I moved the pump to the end chamber.

 

[Redleg]

Are you using anything like GFO or Phosguard to bring down those PO4 numbers?

Nope. I was at 40 nitrates and 100ppb phosphorus when I put in the first batch of chaeto. My idea was to use it to reduce nitrates and phosphate leaching from the dry rock. Didn't work out well.

 

[LiveWire]

I could be wrong but that looks like Cyano Bacteria. If it is you may need some more flow in that area. I also see what looks like Caulerpa in the background and you have to be careful with that or it can take your tank over. How long has this system been up and running? I am thinking that you may be adding things too fast if it has not completely cycled.

 

[Redleg]

I started the system on memorial day with weekly doses of biospira and 1 raw shrimp to get it cycled. I'm running an old Eheim 2215 canister full of ceramic rings and now it has 2 sicce Voyager 2 800gph wave pumps. This is only my dump and rock for the most part. 29g tank and 45lbs of rock. My idea is to get this up and running prior to setting up the 60g display. Was thinking I could get the sump and all my rock cycled and through most of the uglier things first. Then hook it up to my DT.