Boosting Coraline Growth

[jaxredsoxfan]

Following along, I also seem to have a few spots but not the growth I would expect when everything else is doing so well. I do run higher than normal ALK - 10.5-11.0. I think after reading this Ill send a test out and see what it said. To be honest Ive never done that on any tank Ive had. Thanks for asking the question and getting me thinking!

 

[Tihsho]

I'm glad this question lead to a series of good info. Seems like Boron and lighting will make the difference. I'd like to hear more.

 

[Phil D.]

Not sure why, but ever since I got back in the hobby in February I've been unable to get significant growth of Coraline in any of my tanks. My display has been up for 8 months and I've got a spot of Coraline here and there. My frag tank has been up for the same amount of time and gets about the same. Here are the params and specs of both tanks:

Water/Salt:

0 TDS RO/DI water through 7 stage filtration
Aquavitro (Seachem) Salinity
25% water changes weekly

Params:
S.G. - 1.026
Temp - 79-81 F
Ca - 450 ppm
Alk - 11 dKH
Mg - 1500 (maxes out my kits)
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - ~10ppm

I've tried using Caribsea Purple up which worked ages ago when I had an AquaPod, but I don't see any results. On top of that I've tried dosing Brightwell Aquatics Iodion as well as well as tried Seachem's Iodide in separate instances and never noticed a change in Coraline growth. I did how ever notice that my shrimp and hermits molt much more regularly and cleanly since I've started an Iodine addition.

Any reason why the Coraline would be so slow to appear? It seems to cover frag plugs it's established in, but it never propagates to other surfaces (pumps, back walls of acrylic, glass, rock.) To me it sounds like either the environment isn't ideal or that the coral are taking too much of a certain nutrient that is necessary.

Boost your Ca. With your Alk at 11 it should be around 480-500.

 

[Tihsho]

Boosting Ca will cause the coraline growth to increase?

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Any changes in lighting? Ive read anecdotal claims that elevated par levels can decrease coraline growth as well. I’d guess a short term reaction and it would return to a normal pace once adjusted.

I saw loads of growth in my last system when I added T5 to the LED’s as well. Again totally anecdotal but what else is new?

No changes in lighting. Ever since I got my 20K LEDs from BuildMyLED several years ago, the coraline came in fast and in multiple colors. Then I had issues with water chemistry several months ago and the growth just stopped.

I think you'll need both lighting PAR and spectrum along with water chemistry to get it going and sustain it. I have the lighting, which I know is heavy on the blues and has some UV, but I also know I have water chemistry issues to overcome.

 

[Drew Halliday]

I was having corals bleaching and receding so I pulled the affected ones and put them in the quarantine tank. Weird thing was it was only some of the corals, 6 kinds of montipora, 2 Birdsnest, And hydnophora were seriously not happy. But 14 acros were doing great.

I did have a last dragon RTN because it was in the shade and I was trying to lower lights to help the other guys, and we had a heat wave and the power went out for 9 hours.

The problem was I had a couple of expired test kits without knowing it and I was dosing too much. I was using Redsea mag and cal kits. I got a ICP test done and my calcium was at 630 mg/l and my magnesium was at 1770 mg/l! So much for the thought that high magnesium slows hair algae!

 

[Kfactor]

What helped me was dosing no3 and po4

 

[Backreefing]

Lately my magnesium has been way high .and some montipora were recieding and bleaching . Birdnests were mixed , same for the acropora. But Coraline algae had stopped growing. The cool thing is no algae anywhere I mean nothing . But I did a large water change with Red Sea blue bucket @(40-45%)water change. And all levels are spot on magnesium tested at 1470 . Alkalinity 8.4 calcium 460 . So I’m relieved. Hoping for a change in Coraline algae growth.