Help, Chaeto dying?

[Coral Hygiene]

So 5 days ago I bought a tennis ball sized piece of chaetomorpha from a lfs but its starting to become clear. It was fully green when I put it in but it seems that it is slowly dying, which I can not figure out. My tank has been finished with cycling for several weeks; right now I have ammonia at 0, nitrite at 0, nitrate at 70, pH at 8.4, and temperature at 78.4. The refugium that it is in has n Eheim Power LED Daylight mounted about 10 inches from the chaeto. I added the chaeto hoping that it would take up the nitrates. My DT has no algae, cyano, or dianos being that theres only dry rock and live sand, so why is my chaeto becoming clear?

 

[TbyZ]

algae prefer NH3 - NH4 to NO3. Also needs PO4.

Do you have any fish in your tank?

The fish excrete ammonia as they metabolise food & the feed will supply the phosphate.

 

[Coral Hygiene]

algae prefer NH3 - NH4 to NO3. Also needs PO4.

Do you have any fish in your tank?

The fish excrete ammonia as they metabolise food & the feed will supply the phosphate.

I don’t have any fish in yet - i still have a fish in quarintine. But I have been ghost feeding pellets to provide a source of ammonia. It wont be several weeks until I get can a fish in my display so will I have to watch the chaeto slowly die before then?

 

[TbyZ]

I don’t have any fish in yet - i still have a fish in quarintine. But I have been ghost feeding pellets to provide a source of ammonia. It wont be several weeks until I get can a fish in my display so will I have to watch the chaeto slowly die before then?

the ghost feeding pellets will have to be mineralised by bacteria before DOC are converted to ammonia.

How long are you running the light for?

9 hours would be more than enough for now, in the circumstances.

 

[Coral Hygiene]

I have been ghost feeding so that the bacteria in the tank would have something to break down (which I thought was beneficial). The lights are on for 12 hours, so I’ll cut it down the 9 for the time being then