Coraline Algae

cool the tank looks great....So his rock is pretty nice after all the bad rap he had gotten early in the game...its looking good....

 

Thanks Coldshot, yea it's really starting to come together. I just don't really like the lime green coloration of the rocks. When I take pictures of it with the camera it looks really worse than it is, I still haven't figured out how to take good pictures with it yet. I must take 100 or more pictures a day just to see how they turn out and then just delete them unless they come out good.

 

Are you running a protien skimmer

 

Yes I have an Aqua C EV-180 in the sump

 

give it time and the lime green should give way to nice coraline. low lights are best for growing it. You could also try getting some micro algae such as cheato or calupra and this will help suck up nutrients so that the diatoms won't grow. good luck.

 

purple coraline is on the rock in the first pic, just get a knife to it and scrape some of it off in the tank, my coraline algae is going like mad and my params have always been a constant calcium-390, mag1150, alk 7, give it time and it will come...

 

I have had my tank established for several months now. All of my live rock has some form of purple on it, however, it was this way when i bought it. It may have begun to spread but I am not 100% sure. I am under the impression that when coraline algae dies it turns white. If I have rocks with purple on them, I should assume that this algae is alive; right? Is there any reason that I should attempt this suggested method of adding shaved coraline algae from any other rock? Would it help my system to scrape some of the existing c. algae?

 

There is a such thing as green coralline algae. To give you a peace of mind, try scratching it off the rock, if it is hard to come off, then it is most likely coralline. If it comes off easily, then it's not. You can get coralline growth without initial introduction "scrapings" but it is very hard. Think of it, at some point in history, it formed from seemingly nothing right? If you have aragonite particles and the right chemistry of Ca, Mg, dk, pH, etc etc, you can get coralline growth. It's just quicker to have established spores introduced in your tank. The color and the growth rate of the coralline is influenced by the spectrum and intensity of lighting you are using too.