Massive coralline growth. Is this normal?

Wow! I love coraline! My first tank was loaded with it. People always asked if I painted the tank. It's a very good thing, but that is why I'll never buy acrylic tanks, they scratch if you look at em wrong...

 

i use my finger nails to get it off my walls and i dont think i have a scratch yet! but that would take alot mines just a few spots

 

I would say buy a sea urchin as they eat coralline, but in doing so they also spread it around. I see a ton of little starfish, people say the ones with a blush tint ear coralline but yours look white to me.

Im not sure if you add enough urchins if they would eat coralline faster than it would grow maybe someone can chime in. I am also not sure if they would eat it off the glass or just the rocks

 

I've heard of people using credit cards to scrape off algae in acrylic tanks. Happy reefing.
-Chance

 

The two issue I see is: 1. You are in fact seeding your tank further with coralline by scraping it off frequently, which most people would consider a good thing. 2. Acrylic, hence the reason I would never buy an acrylic tank, yes I know stating the obvious. I had one for several years, after awhile even though some scratches are not that obvious that is all you see when you look at the tank. Buffing them out is a nightmare.

Looks like you have some Asterna stars, but they will not eat the coralline off the walls and again further spread the coralline spores around with their consumption of it.

An urchin will probably not really make a dent in the growth on the walls but more likely the rock work.

I would drop the Ca back to 350, maybe get some clams and see if they suck up the ca faster than the algae (if you lighting can support them). Add more rock surface.

A wonderful problem to have in glass tank, kind of sucks in an acrylic.

 

Made my next tank decision easy after reading this thread!! And to think, I was thinking acrylic would be a good thing! lol

 

Okay. I never realized that by scrubbing the coralline, i could be spreading it around. I do have an urchin, but he seems intent on spending his life knocking over my corals.

 

Haha my tuxedo urchin is the same way, I had to manually move him away twice today!

By the way, the Asterna stars you have in your tank look like they're about to become a real nuisance if you dont start removing them. At the volume you have them in the tank it could end up being disastrous for the biofilm on your corals if they begin to eat it. These little guys don't even mean to be a nuisance but have a hankering for the biofilm and can accidentally harm coral in large numbers.

 

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, the rest of my family is attached to those little things.

 

It's fine to have some, but if they get any more out of hand in numbers (which they will as they split and multiply by dropping legs at rapid rates) you might have to make a sneaky move one night and grab a long set of tweezers and take about half the population out.

Other than that, good luck on the Coraline issue that seems incredibly strange!