Coraline Algae promotion what to try when tried it all

[Addicted2Reef’n]

I’ve tried several of different methods of encouraging healthy pink and purple algae’s in my tank for past 1 1/2 and not getting much growth ? I’ve got a lot of questions lol

 

[AlgaeBarn]

I’ve tried several of different methods of encouraging healthy pink and purple algae’s in my tank for past 1 1/2 and not getting much growth ? I’ve got a lot of questions lol

What all have you tried? Did you mean to put 1 1/2 months? What are you water parameters? How long has your aquarium been up? -Raven

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

What methods? And for how long?

 

[bushdoc]

Is your tank 1 1/2 months old? If so it’s generally to early. You need 3 months or more and stable parameters, especially Ca and Alkalinity.

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

My tank was started with all live rock from LFS FEBRUARY 2022

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

Ca 500 mag 1500 dkh 9.3 p04 .12 nitrates 0-low (api test lol)

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

4 fish that coexist really well with lots of caves rockwork and for past 7 months I’ve had pineapple sponges yellow sponge and after I introduced copepod mix I have a reoccurring population my mandarin has been here 4 months and gotten fat from what’s in tank . Healthy tank but my coraline sucks ! I have encrusting montis and acrapora but the coraline on the rocks is taking its dang time . Sorry I get excited w this stuff

 

[pandaparties]

Out of curiosity do you have any limpets (small, pointy shell). I too was/am devoid of coralline for years despite healthy coral growth. Turns out certain species thrive on it as a food source. Hard to tell from the pic but your back wall almost looks like you have them

 

[kevgib67]

Well, if you have proper lighting, ca and alk you could scrape coralline algae of the wall of a tank at your lfs or a fellow reefer’s to seed yours. Strange you don’t have any even on the plastic pieces after a year. Do you have an urchin?

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

2 of my SPS with evidence of encrusting onto my rocks over time ? I thought you were supposed to get the coralline to grow and then you were ready to get sps corals that will encrust and grow with your Ca Mg Alk ph baselines you keep right ? I ordered two shells with encrusting coralline on eBay and shld be here any day. I plan to crush in blender and turn off pumps for a while .

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

Out of curiosity do you have any limpets (small, pointy shell). I too was/am devoid of coralline for years despite healthy coral growth. Turns out certain species thrive on it as a food source. Hard to tell from the pic but your back wall almost looks like you have them

 

[Joe462]

i know this isn't helpful but i find that coraline algae grows the best and fastest when and where you don't want it to, like the glass of your frag tank.

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

These are a couple of my clean up crew , I also have 3 emerald crabs 25 hermits (blue and red) , chitons sphaghetti worms, bristle stars , bristle worms and the snails that look like slugs

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

Those are the filter feeder shells that grow on glass. I have never scraped the back glass. It’s turned into a solid hard sheet of green

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

Is your tank 1 1/2 months old? If so it’s generally too early. You need 3 months or more and stable parameters, especially Ca and Alkalinity

I’ve tried several of different methods of encouraging healthy pink and purple algae’s in my tank for past 1 1/2 and not getting much growth ? I’ve got a lot of questions lol

sorry Ive had tank for only 1 year this month now that I looked it up . I meant 1 1/2 year .

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

These are my new light parameters with less light to help with algae. If something wrong plz let me know .
Channel 114k bright cool white SET AT 25%
Channel 2- 450nm-457nm deep blue SET AT 75%
Channel 3- 430nm Indigo Blue SET AT 75%
Channel 4- 410nm Violet & 420nm Purple (Fluorescent channel) SET AT 100 %
Channel 5- 3000k warm white & 6500k Neutral white SET AT 20%

Sunrise is at 7:40 am
Sunlight starts 12:00 noon
Sunset starts 4:00pm
Moonlight starts 8:00pm
Lights off 9:45 pm

 

[Troylee]

2 of my SPS with evidence of encrusting onto my rocks over time ? I thought you were supposed to get the coralline to grow and then you were ready to get sps corals that will encrust and grow with your Ca Mg Alk ph baselines you keep right ? I ordered two shells with encrusting coralline on eBay and shld be here any day. I plan to crush in blender and turn off pumps for a while .

That’s an old wise tale… I’ve seen crazy Sps tanks with zero corraline! Mostly low nutrient systems.. I’ve never had much luck with corraline but have kept Sps for years! Including right now..

 

[Tathamet]

To get my newer tank seeded I just used a frag plug that had some on it and took a pen knife/xacto and scraped it into a cup of tank water then poured it around. Started seeing spots show up all over the place in the next couple months.

After a bit growth kinda halted so I started to work on keeping alk and cal stable and things started back up again. Growth has been pretty slow.

I think I’d been having ph issues at night on some nights so I decided to start slowly dosing kalk to see if I could fix the random crashes i was getting periodically over night (so far so good!). And that is when the coralline growth started exploding lol. Now I can’t keep it off the glass! Trying to raise the ph has made a huge difference in my tank.

 

[Screwgunner]

Be happy you don't have it! It sucks getting it off my pumps. Glass .

 

[Addicted2Reef’n]

I dose BRS KALKWASSER 1 1/2 TSP per 5 gallon ATO that last 8 days . Also I have dosed trace elements and iodide using Vibrance from aqua vitro as well as aminos until I started feeding whole oysters