purple up

does it really work?

 

It has in the bottle what it says on the label.
You could also just save your $ by dosing magnesium, calcium, and baking soda w/borate to get your primary water parameters to where they should be to allow the coraline algea to grow - which is what I'd assume you're after.

 

I actually had better luck with coraline growing after we stopped using it. Some believe it is a gimmic.

 

placebo effect

keep your params at reef levels and you will be overrun by stupid coralline soon enough. I hate this stuff. It's everywhere.

 

since we're on the topic of coraline and i haven't felt like starting a new thread about it...quick question..what makes it purple? My back glass is starting to get covered but its with ugly olive green and only a couple of purple patches. Is it lighting? magnesium? out of my control? Just curious..

 

There are different species of coralline, some are purple, green, reddish varieties. So in your tank the greenish stuff must just be taking off first. Eventually you'll probably find the purple stuff popping up as well. In my tank I've found the green stuff only grows well in shaded areas whereas the purple stuff grows where there's more light.

 

I will admit that I used something similar when I started. I decided to go with the Purple Tech since it didn't have iodine. I had heard that too much iodine is a bad thing. I bought two bottles and can't say that it really raised my levels. My magnesium was always on the low side. I ended up getting a good quality salt and it put my alk and calcium right on. My magnesium was still a little low so I bought the two part kit from bulk reef supply. Now everything is in line. The coralline has been growing but I think that it is a result of good parameters and time. Like everyone else here says though, you can't stop it once it starts. And it grows everywhere (snail shells, sand, rock, glass, plastic, etc)!!!!!

Regards,
Ivy

 

Exactly! This is the way I see it;

Purple Up is an expensive, short-cut and waste of money method to "speed-up" what will come naturally. Remember, you can not rush Mother Nature. In the end, you will only continue to spend more money buying the supplements to raise Mag, Cal and Alk.


Luna

 

We need a purple up sticky... i see this question a lot.
I personally would not use it

 

Here we go again...Purple up is fine. A good product. It will not overdose Iodine unless there is nothing in the tank which uses Iodine. I used it in the Biocube as an experiment. I dosed maybe 2 times a week and used the 2 part Kent Marine Tech CB for the other days and got this result after 3-4 weeks;

Now, I must tell you, lighting has an effect also. The biocube only has Compaqs and the Purple effect is more pronounced and pretty much dominates the rock. In my 55 gal. I did not dose extensively and with T5s I have more of a variety of colors.