how important is a ato for coralline growth?

i have a hard time growing coralline algae. i know its like the plague but i read where its a good indication that your tank is ready for sps coral. i have some but its not explosive like i think it should be. i keep everything stable except the top off water. i pour in between a gallon and a gallon and a half everyday when i get home from work.
my params are temp 78 to 80
sal 1.025
ph 8.0 to 8.2
alk 10 dkh
cal 500 ppm
mag 1450 ppm
do you think the salinity change throughout the day is slowing the coralline growth?

 

It is possible, but phosphates play havoc with coralline and SPS, so check your phosphates and get it down to .05ppm or lower. Getting nitrates down to 5ppm is a big help also.

 

some tanks just never grow corraline, my tanks never had much corraline yet i loaded them with sps, ato has nothing to do with it.

 

IME, no. I've manually topped-off for over a year, just now getting around to setting up an ATO. I have a coralline covered tank with lots of stony corals.

Having the right levels of Mg, Ca, and Alk are what it really needs. That, and time.

 

Oh yeah, important point here I neglected.

 

So I must be part of a lucky few, my tank is only 2 months old and i havent even checked alk or calc levels and coraline is slowing covering my sand bed and all the snail shells in my tank are now purple. Good Luck!

 

An ATO system will stop the salinity swing from normal to higher when evaporation happens. Not to mention a lot less headache having to keep topping off your tank.

A couple questions. How old is your system and what do you have for lighting?

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how old and how large is your system? A gallon a day is about what mine evaporates...

Coralline usually doesn't take off until after the 6 month mark IME... if you haven't passed 6 months yet, just wait it out...

Do you have any types of nuisance algae growing?

 

Google cyano algae dude, I think that's what you're seeing on your sand bed at 2 months, not coralline.

 

Oh man, im in the same boat. Over a year and alot less purple than I'd like. I've got a little nuisance algae on my back wall so maybe more antiphos is it.
Good luck tracking down your culprit! And let us know if you find the issue so I can check my tank lol

(sorry, sometimes tapatalk will pick words for me!)