Coralline Algae, No Lights on

[YEGReef]

Tank is now up and running, started with live sand, Fritz 9 and now has 2 clowns in the tank. Currently, lights are off, awaiting the ugly stage before buying any clean-up crew.

My question is, another hobbyist is wanting to give me a good chunk of Coralline, am I able to put that into my tank and will it do well with just the surroundings lighting in the house, or should turn on my lights a couple hours a day on low light to help it spread?

Also, its a chunk of Coralline, should i just place it on the rocks and let it do its thing or should I crush it onto the rocks?

Thank you!

 

[Lavey29]

It would be best to scrape it and spread the dust in your tank to seed it. But new tanks won't sustain coralline. It needs stable good parameters and lights. Probably 6 months you might see coralline. It shows up on plastic parts long before rocks and glass.

 

[dwipayan83]

Is this coralline appearing?

 

[crabgrass]

I have a tank that is up and running 2 full months. About 15% of the rock is live rock that had some correline on it. The other was dry rock that was precycled for a month before putting it into the tank.

There are about 40 frags of coral in the tank now at various levels of maturity 95% LPs and softies).

The ocean rock has a bunch of correline and continues to grow at a rapid pace.

The dry rock has had a couple of areas of correline come in, but it is at the very lowest of the low light. And the pace is very slow, compared to the ocean rock. Only at the very base of the rocks and almost in the shade.

I am not answering your question directly, but I would almost guess that some sort of minimal lighting or ambient in the room would be sufficient.

All that being said, what @Lavey29 said above is the most correct. I would not expect it to come in force until 6-9 months, assuming your parameters level out.

The first six months - especially for a 100% dry rock tank are full of crazy parameter swings and interesting algae. My parametes were bottomed out 2 months ago and now phosphates and nitrates are climbing steadily.