Chaeto: where'd it go?

So about 10 days ago I threw in 3 tennis balls worth of chaeto into my sump in an eggcrate divided area. I'm down to half a tennis ball. I know, your first reaction is "not enough nutrients/light". My nitrates are a steady 30, PO4 is near zero (phosban), and I'm running the 65W equivalent 6500K spot from Home Depot over it, 12 hrs a day. It has quite a bit of flow too; it did break up a little the first few days, but was staying together just fine after day 2.

I have two thoughts on where/why it might be disappearing, but ultimately I'm unsure, hence this post. There is a fair amount of air bubbles passing through it. I don't know if this is problematic, but my intuition was no since it was shipped to me in bags, no water, just air. My other thought: my amphipods are eating it. One caveat here: my amphipods are big, and they think my zoas are delicious from time to time. Debate all you want, I've seen them eat portions of a completely healthy, thriving colony at night before. My canary wrasse now helps control their numbers in the DT.

So what looks off to the experts?

 

phosban is probably killing it, by leaving no phosphate.

 

I think you may have a combo, low phosphates and ravenous pods. It may well have just stressed and melted away also.

 

You should try some high quality chaeto from the for sale board. I hear Dingo has some nice strains...

 

Shameless plug FTW? It came from reef cleaners. But it does look like I'll need some more soon...

 

lol im sure Johns is really good quality. I just have this one mutant strain that grows really fast and looks a little different than the normal dense chaeto.

how fast is your flow through there?

 

Ha! I wasn't questioning his quality (and I know you were not implying such either).

That particular area probably sees around 200-300gph.

 

I was having the problem with my chateo when I first got it from John. I had it under a 65k bulb with low flow. I switched to a 15 watt 10k bulb and moved the bulb closer to the water surface and it's growing great now. How close is your light to the surface of the water?

 

Mmm, probably about 18".

 

Might be onto something there!