temphermitcrab
Community Member
A week ago I received some of ARC Reef's new CCAᐩ- CRUSTOSE CORALLINE ALGAE. They said that I received one of the initial batches so I thought I would pass along my experience so far.
This product is different from the bottle of spores from ARC that people are used to seeing. I received an 8oz. jar with small pieces of Coralline algae. Each piece is from 1-5 sq. cm. and up to about 1cm. thick of solid Coralline. The pieces are not attached to a substrate and can be placed throughout your aqua scape. They don't look like they were just scraped from the side of an aquarium - these were patiently grown to be sold and then carefully cut. They said there are 7-8 species and I can see a number of shades of Pink, Purple, and Red. Some species will end up doing better under higher or lower lighting. The colors are beautiful, although I haven't taken any pictures. There were definitely more than the 20 pieces they guaranteed. They mentioned that there could be beneficial organisms included with the Coralline but mine had none visible. There should be Copepods and beneficial bacteria.
It was shipped with cold packs and arrived in great condition. I placed the Coralline throughout my 4 month old system and hopefully I will see some results. I already have some Coralline on my pump heads from previously scraping snail shells. I realize there are other sources of Coralline but I wanted to see if this product would be a little quicker, give me more color variety, and be safe from parasites.
The ARC Coralline cost $59.99 including shipping. They also included a bottle of the Purple Coralline in a Bottle. There are other online sellers of Coralline but the ARC product appeared to me to be designed to be sold rather than incidental scrapings. All but one of the online sellers I found with Coralline in stock were more expensive once shipping was added. With everything I've spent so far to get my tank to this point, the cost was worth it to me. Hopefully I'll see some new colors in a month.
This product is different from the bottle of spores from ARC that people are used to seeing. I received an 8oz. jar with small pieces of Coralline algae. Each piece is from 1-5 sq. cm. and up to about 1cm. thick of solid Coralline. The pieces are not attached to a substrate and can be placed throughout your aqua scape. They don't look like they were just scraped from the side of an aquarium - these were patiently grown to be sold and then carefully cut. They said there are 7-8 species and I can see a number of shades of Pink, Purple, and Red. Some species will end up doing better under higher or lower lighting. The colors are beautiful, although I haven't taken any pictures. There were definitely more than the 20 pieces they guaranteed. They mentioned that there could be beneficial organisms included with the Coralline but mine had none visible. There should be Copepods and beneficial bacteria.
It was shipped with cold packs and arrived in great condition. I placed the Coralline throughout my 4 month old system and hopefully I will see some results. I already have some Coralline on my pump heads from previously scraping snail shells. I realize there are other sources of Coralline but I wanted to see if this product would be a little quicker, give me more color variety, and be safe from parasites.
The ARC Coralline cost $59.99 including shipping. They also included a bottle of the Purple Coralline in a Bottle. There are other online sellers of Coralline but the ARC product appeared to me to be designed to be sold rather than incidental scrapings. All but one of the online sellers I found with Coralline in stock were more expensive once shipping was added. With everything I've spent so far to get my tank to this point, the cost was worth it to me. Hopefully I'll see some new colors in a month.
