Maybe somebody can help me out with this. I read somewhere that there is an additive that will help make my coraline algae flourish- has anybody heard of this? My rock has become less and less encrusted; damn blue tuxedo and purple pin. I have scraped some spots so as to spread the spores, but this has not got the job done.
Any tricks will be very appreciated.
Thanks
-Ray
I have used purple up and while I can’t say it didn’t help I doubt it did as much as when I shaved a fellows reefers tank. When I wanted to get additional coraline to take off I scraped it off Cdangel0’s tank. He has super coraline as it was everywhere in 2 weeks. A good salt mix will take care of the calcium and mag just get some coraline algae to see the tank.
a lot of factors seem to affect coraline- water params and lighting being the biggest.
assuming you have not changed your lighting recently( mine died off significantly after upgrading to MH) you might wanna check your water params, namely Ca, alk and Mg. if you have corraline in your tank already getting your water in check should allow it to eventually flourish. if you have nuiscance algae, its a good indicator that something isnt right and that coraline wont grow…
as an aside, many reefers really want coraline for its asthetics, keep in mind though that coraline diminishes LRs ability to work as a natural filter…
Agree with Eric. If the light is too bright it will hurt coralline. If the light is too white it will hurt coralline. And having Ca, Mg, and Alk where they should be will help significantly.
The product you have heard of is most likely what shawn posted a link to. All this is super fine powder aragonite and a little additional Ca and Mg. It may help boost growth a little, but if the conditions are not right it still will not grow.
If you don’t have corals and just want coralline then I would say run you’re actinics 10 hours a day and you’re white lights as little as possible.(maybe for just an hour after you get home from work?)
If you are going for an SPS dominant tank and want a lot corals that demand bright light then the tank may just have too bright of light for coralline. Where these corals come from in the wild coralline is found under the rocks buried in the sand, but not on top where it’s visible.
This is just one opinion based on my experience and observations.
[quote=“Gordonious, post:5, topic:924”]
. Where these corals come from in the wild coralline is found under the rocks buried in the sand, but not on top where it’s visible.
This is just one opinion based on my experience and observations. [/quote]
I will 2nd that. I actually think that the high flow and high light of most sps tanks is part of the reason most of them dont have alot of coralline growth. In the wild, it is found in areas that are fairly calm and not on the tops of the rock.
You mentioned scraping rocks to get some seed coraline in to the water. Which is a great start. I don’t have quite the level on the glass yet to offer some of my “super” coraline, but in the interim try taking 2 smaller rocks (adequately encrusted of course) and rub them together throughout the tank. This generally works better then scraping as you’ll get finer pieces of coralin and more of them.
You can sometimes find super coraline encrusted rock at some LFS. If you’re lucky enough you may be able to find some rubble rock in this. A couple piece of that scatered through out the tank could help. Dr. Mac sometimes will sell rock right out of his coral tanks. Premium Aquatics has a couple of really small pieces. Pet Kare II had some rubble rock for sale as well to, but don’t remember how purple it was. Next time you run into me while I am working I can scrape some tanks for you.
[quote=“icy1155, post:6, topic:924”]
[quote=“Gordonious, post:5, topic:924”]
. Where these corals come from in the wild coralline is found under the rocks buried in the sand, but not on top where it’s visible.
This is just one opinion based on my experience and observations. [/quote]
I will 2nd that. I actually think that the high flow and high light of most sps tanks is part of the reason most of them dont have alot of coralline growth. In the wild, it is found in areas that are fairly calm and not on the tops of the rock.[/quote]
I agree. I actually am not all that fond of coralline. I hate scraping it off the glass. I am trying to encourage some of the more unusual colors in my new tank. The purple everywhere is just so boring.
Yup, as far as I know, Purple Up is a slurry of something like aragomite with the extra Ca, Mg and perhaps a bit more strontium too. the white milky powdered aragonite actuall stops disolving in water above PH 8 so it just settles on the bottom. but you can add Ca, Mg and Sr. yourself. Like FCB says, bright light kills off coraline. it likes lower light with more blue. you probably have enough residual coraline to seed the tank once the conditions are jumpstarted for it.