Live Rock has no color

Hi, I've had my 65 gallon fish tank set up for about 4 years. The first 3 1/2 yrs the tank was set up as fish only. When I moved and had to tear the tank down I decided to add some live rock. I now have 50lbs of live rock in the tank and it has been in there for almost 5 months. The rock still has no color to it. There is some red/brown growth on the rock, but no purple, green, or pink as the description said. Could someone please tell me what happened to the rock? Is it still good or did I just throw away $200.

 

no no any rock is good rock, well if its of the live rock calcium carbonate type.

but the red brown algae is the first algae that will grown on the rock and the quality of the rock will differ from place to place. if i doesnt look like it is improving try adding some well covered live rock to seed it with.
live rock can take years to come covered in life and good algae, make sure your water quality is up and it should take off
but the most likely event is that your tank is recycling a bit from the move and has only just recently finished so its just ajusting.

hope all goes well

 

hey alley cat

I had a reef set up some time ago, that had dry rock in to start and 2 years later there where a few patches of purple/pinks here and there - bacteria are what we really want on the rock/ in the rock , the quality of live rock is not related to its colour or to what other life forms spring up on it

if you want more purple, you need to seed more - scrape some coralline of some other rocks, plastics etc, let it settle on your bare rocks and in time they will start to develop more purple

but eventually, you will probably wish they had stayed bare - as when it gets really established it can cause a lot of pain, glogged overflows, blocked spraybars and severely messed up tank sides and back

Steve

 

Cat -

Coralline algae is introduced to a system in a few ways, encrusted rocks and scrapings from other sources are the most common. Coralline will grow in both strong and weak light environments. Coralline is calcium based so your levels should be 350+, Alk/dkh should be in range; you also should dose strontium and keep in mind coralline does not take to phosphates or nitrates. Generally speaking, water changes will benefit coralline.

With that in mind – my suggestion to you: Turn off your system (no filters no skimmer etc) but circulate your water, scrape the coralline that you have with a razor blade and let the tank sit for about an hour. The spores from your scraping will setting in and grow more coralline within a couple of months – assuming the afore mentioned parameters are maintained.

A good place to start is your LFS, go there and ask for a scraping of a few different colors – you don’t need much so they should oblige. Undoubtedly they will try and sell you a commercial product – its not needed, just get the scrapings and follow the instruction above and you will be all set in no time at all.

Oh, did you waste your money? No, no way actually. The rock you have is seeded already – I am sure of it. I suspect that maintaining the proper water parameters and staying on top of your calcium will result in all the colors you desire. Good luck!

 

I HATE coralline algae. During tax season, I was working 16 hour days and wouldn't scrape for 3 months. Every April 16th, I would literally have to scrape all my tanks for about 12 straight hours.

 

Don't hate on the coralline, hate the tax....but not the coralline.

I did puplic accounting for years, switched to the private sector 15 or so years ago and my April is enjoyable year after year (so is my coralline!);D

 

LOL

I still try to avoid it and always get tons of it no matter how hard I try. The people who want it can't get it and all I have to do is sneeze and I get it.

 

You should go into coralline farming (I hesitate to call in fragging lol). Some people can't get any to save their lives, and you can't get it to stop lol. I hate the stuff too, it clogs my Koralia's and my venturi skimmer, grrrrr. Plus, mine is ugly green!