Chaeto disintegrated

[SOGavity]

I do a weekly water change and basic maintenance on my reef. Tonight, as I opened the sump cabinet to change socks and clean the protein skimmer, I noticed my chaeto was mostly gone. Aside from a little ball that fell apart when I moved it, it's all disappeared. I've had the same "ball" of chaeto in my sump since the beginning. I used an old Fluval freshwater light to fuel it. It grew enough times that I've had to cut it back and share it with my LPS. The only thing I've changed in the last three weeks was instead of dosing Seachem Reef Carbonate, I started dosing All For Reef. I have noticed during my last testing about a week ago that my Nitrates were at 7 and phosphates were undetectable, but the chaeto was still there.

I'm not sure what happened and I'm hoping someone can give me some insight as to what could cause chaeto to literally disintegrate into nothing.

 

[bluemon]

low nutrients and low trace elements (manganese and iron) is my guess

 

[ReefSymbiotic]

Do a water change. When they die or “spore” they release a lot of phosphate and other elements they absorb.

 

[SOGavity]

low nutrients and low trace elements (manganese and iron) is my guess

But I dose the trace elements...? Via the All for Reef.

 

[DD0513]

Super low nutrients probably.

 

[bluemon]

But I dose the trace elements...? Via the All for Reef.

Manganese and iron are fast depleting trace elements that will not be replenished much with the dosage required to keep alk/calc/mag consistent