shrinking chaeto??

[sks4613]

2 months ago I put 20 mangrove plants in the sump with the chaeto. The chaeto was fine growing like a weed. Over the last month and weeks I have noticed that is no longer growing but shrinking... I have a habit of making sure it isn't clumping and rotating it. Anyways what is left is healthy just getting smaller and smaller. I was wondering perhaps if the mangroves and chaeto or competing for nutrients or something and the chaeto is losing. Any ideas on what to do?

[qfrisco]

Originally Posted by sks4613

2 months ago I put 20 mangrove plants in the sump with the chaeto. The chaeto was fine growing like a weed. Over the last month and weeks I have noticed that is no longer growing but shrinking... I have a habit of making sure it isn't clumping and rotating it. Anyways what is left is healthy just getting smaller and smaller. I was wondering perhaps if the mangroves and chaeto or competing for nutrients or something and the chaeto is losing. Any ideas on what to do?

It's possible that there just aren't enough nutrients to sustain the chaeto, and like you said, the mangroves are "winning". Do you know what your nitrates are at right now? How about back then? Perhaps you had elevated nitrates back then, which was good enough to sustain both, and now your nitrates are down to zero, so there's competition between the mangroves and the chaeto.