Help - Red Coraline? (Attached Photos)

Hey guys, I am in the 5th month of my new 90g reef tank.
So far things have gone pretty smoothly.

However, There have been a few corals that have died recently and lately I have noticed that I'm not getting really nice light purple coraline? I am noticing some darker red spots on the rocks and also some green ones?

I also do a 10g water change about every week and my nitrates never get above 10. but after i do a water change by vacuuming it out of the sand bed i notice some diatom algae on the sand the next few days. If i completely leave it alone for a week or 2 it does go away but I'm just wondering why it appears right when i do a fresh water change? Attached are some pictures of what its looking like.

I am using salinity salt currently.

Salt - 1.025
Nitrate - 5 to 10
PH 8.2
KH 10
Calcium 420

Can anyone help me out with any of this? I appreciate any advice due to the fact I'm still new to the hobby! Thanks guys!

-Ryan

 

wow! very impressive. I think you have various colors of coralline. I'm thinking there must be silicates in your water change water and that's why it comes out after a change.

 

Are you actually vacuuming the sandbed. If so you could be disturbing it enough to cause a small little diatom bloom that dies off once the water settles back in. I let my critter s do all my sand cleaning for me so that it mixes in on a smaller scale and little to no blooms just a thought

 

Don't vacuume the sand. Your sucking out a lot of good bacteria causing the diatom bloom from bacterial growth. Also coraline algae comes in green, red, orange, purple, and blue. But takes right water chemistry to get all the other colors. And lighting.


-Alex-

 

Tank looks great. I agree, do not disturb the sand bed and if you do, do it in smaller sections. I see a lot of different types of coralline. Does the anemone host the Clarkii clown?

Moved to------General Reef Topics.

 

I siphon all my sand every week. The water comes out brown, I don't think there are many critters to actually disturbed the sand enough in most tanks. My sand is 1 maybe 2 inches deep. I honestly feel I'm helping the tank by siphoning the sand. I know I might be taking out beneficial bacteria, but I'm obviously taking out more bad stuff that is just building up, to cause problems in the tank down the road. My tank is a reef and my rocks have coraline growing everywhere, pink, red, green, maroon. BUT, I've been siphoning my sand since I set up my tank, 10 months ago.

 

If you have that much build up weekly, you need more water flow to keep the particulates suspended in the water column so the filtration can extract them.

 

I've got lots if flow. I bet if anyone with lots of flow would siphon their sand, they would be surprised as to how much particulates sand holds no matter how much flow.

 

I have dozens of sand sifting snails that stir mine up. I will sometimes vacuum around the edges of the rocks but that's about it.

 

So are you all agreeing that its good to have several different colors of coraline and not just the light purple?