Coralline Fever

[Urkin$Urchin]

So I have the fever, The Coralline Fever. lol
I have 3 saltwater tanks, two 75 gallons run by canister filters and a 125 gallon with 55 gallon sump/fuge, My 125 is almost 4 years old, both of my 75's are over a year old, and I have yet to get coralline to grow in any of them, and they have all be seeded with coralline rocks, bottled coralline, snails and crabs with coralline, etc
I just can not get it to grow, and what makes it so strange, is my one 75 gallon bowfront that was given to me by my doctor, Was eat up with coralline when he had it, it was everywhere, but he had let the tank go and had a lot of gunk and hair algae and stuff as well, and it stunk, so when he gave it to me, I brought it home, cleaned it up, done a water change, etc, I got it looking great, it has been running for a year and all the coralline had disappeared, My lighting i am running is viparspectras and mars aquas, and the one he had on the 75 bowfront which is a Fluval.
Now in my my one tank, my 75, I figured the coralline not growing could possibly be because I do have an urchin in that tank, but what about all the others, What am I doing wrong, I seriously can not grow algae in any of my tanks, I have even tried to grow some hair algae just for my tangs to graze on and have something to nibble, I can't even grow that, my water is crystal clear, calcium usually stays around 440, my dkh normally around 12.3, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, not sure about nitrates, haven't been able to test that yet, no kit, But what could be the reason I can't get algae to grow, AT ALL.
Thanks to all who can give me some info

 

[lapin]

You might think of this a good thing. Many a reefer has spent hours scraping it off the glass.

 

[Nigel35]

temperature... what is it usually stay like

 

[Nigel35]

The Secret to Coralline In New Tanks

I've done a lot of looking into Coralline and Coralline growth recently. Seems to be a topic some reefers struggle with for years, and some not so much. For certain one thing that for me is a must is you MUST have favorable water conditions similar to that of any encrusting corals SPS...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[ScottB]

Hi,
A few thoughts for you:
12 dkh is a bit racy -- particularly if you might be nutrient limited.
Pick up a nitrate test kit (any will do; I like NYOS) and a Hanna Phosphate ULR
No need to test nitrite and ammonia any more. Your tanks should be cycled by now.
You could buy some live rock that has coralline. If it dies on you, well, something else is really wrong. I would then recommend an ICP test.

If you are going to buy SPS or LPS coral some day, most vendors run ALK closer to natural seawater or just a touch above. 8dkh is nice. Red Sea Blue bucket and Tropic Marin salt mix to this number.

 

[ZoWhat]

IME its hard to grow coraline in intensely lit tanks. doesn't take much PAR to burn up purple coraline

 

[PooseReefer]

I have an older system and was/am dosing 2 part. The amount i needed to dose kept dropping off to nearly zero, and coralline was disappearing. I knew coral wasn't growing because uptake of Alk and CA had essentially ceased. Nothing was dying but...

I then put a BRS doser onto saturated Kalkwasser and targeted 8.2 on ph with a old controller (Digital Aquatics) . At first it took a TON to keep it up, then a bit less. From a gallon a day to 1/2 gallon a day of saturated kalk on a 120G total system volume. Finally I added a cheap BRS CO2 scrubber and now it only needs a little kalk to keep up.

Anyway, as soon as i focused on the PH things have dramatically improved. Ive been chasing Alk for years but targeting PH has been the best single step I've made in the hobby to this point. Coraline coming back, noticeable growth on SPS, and alk coming back down to reasonable levels of 7.5-8DKH where i had been pushing 11-12. Started the PH target only a few weeks ago but will FINALLY have to start bringing back up the 2 part levels to keep up with coral uptake.

So rare to have a success like this im sharing with anybody who will listen.