Dry Rock Coralline Seeding Experiment

[Red_Beard]

This thread is going to track my experience trying to seed clean dead dry rock that has been wet less than a week with coralline algae using Arcreef's pink and purple helix coralline in a bottle. Their site says it is good for "new tanks" and this one is pretty new This rock is going to replace the existing aquascape in my 4 year old 75 and i want to minimize the impact that will cause by having it cycled and ready to go. Also, hoping that the coralline being the epiphytic type will keep the "uglies" down, ie GHA/cyano/dinos.

Set Up:
This rock has been placed in a separate 40B tank with 2 powerheads (mj1200 type) a heater, and a aquaclear HOB with just the sponge and ROX carbon. It will be illuminated with a 39 inch AI Blade. I have also dosed in some neoNitro and neoPhos to make sure it isn't nutrient limited. The rock was placed into salt water last Saturday, March 18th. It was circulated with the powerheads at room temp for 3 days and then a 100% water change was done to make sure there wasn't anything crazy that was going to leech out quick. The rock was assembled with eMarco 200 and a little epoxy. After the 100% waterchange, i added the HOB with the sponge / carbon and heater. It cycled for 24 hours and then the bottled coralline was added.

Parameters:
Temp: 80F (DRO on heater backed up w fluke)
Sg: 1.025 (refracto)
Ph: 8.2 (tropic marin)
Alk: 9.0 (hanna)
Cal: 410 (salifert)
Mag: Not taken, kit is expired.
NO3: 3ppm (red sea - was between 2 and 4)
PO4: .06 (red sea- was between .04 and .08)

 

[Red_Beard]

Here is a pic of the tank from right before adding the coralline

No light mounted yet, it is being delivered tomorrow.

Please let me know if you have any questions or want other pics!

 

[19Mateo83]

This should be interesting. I shall follow along

 

[Red_Beard]

Progress pic with my lab assistant...

 

[bushdoc]

I am sceptical, but since prejudice is not a scientific tool, I will follow.

 

[marcinpolak]

I’m following, wanted to try this product for a new tank!

 

[taricha]

I got around ~20 days for nitrification/cycling to finish with this product. So it contains cycling bacteria, but it's slow for that purpose.
I got my bottle right around the expiration date. Curious what results you'll see.

 

[Rmckoy]

Curious how this works .
following along

 

[doubleshot00]

You got this sitting on the floor? It may be there a while waiting for this stuff to work.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Curious to see how this will work!!!

 

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

Thanks for putting this together. Following along out of curiosity.

 

[Rowboman]

Definitely following along. I used this stuff for my most recent tank and while I did get coralline fairly early on in it (about 3 months in) it never fully coated the rock work like I had hoped. I’m changing the aqua scape in my tank soon though and am playing with the idea of seeding the new rock I’m adding with this stuff to help crowd out any algae issues that new rock tends to get when added to my tank

 

[Rmckoy]

And just to think all this coralline algae we buy in bottles to hopefully seed our tanks .
once they are settle this stuff grows fast and impossible to get rid of .
I scrape the glass every other week

 

[Red_Beard]

Thank you all for following!

You got this sitting on the floor? It may be there a while waiting for this stuff to work.

Yep, just chucked it on the floor in my home office next to my desk. That cardboard is blocking any salt creep from getting on the books in the bookshelf behind. Wish i had more space for it elsewhere, but here it will be front and center so i can babysit it and it is out of the way of anything else.

I got around ~20 days for nitrification/cycling to finish with this product. So it contains cycling bacteria, but it's slow for that purpose.
I got my bottle right around the expiration date. Curious what results you'll see.

20 days? That is pretty slow. However that does bring up a point that i need to reconsider. I was so focused on the uglies i only gave casual thought to the bacterial colony size that would be necessary for when i transfer it into the main tank with a much higher bioload than a sterile tank. I may have replace it in the display piecemeal rather than all at once to give the colonies time to expand. However i do have some rock in the sump that is staying and i am keeping the sand, so there is not going to be a 100% replacement at least.

Definitely following along. I used this stuff for my most recent tank and while I did get coralline fairly early on in it (about 3 months in) it never fully coated the rock work like I had hoped. I’m changing the aqua scape in my tank soon though and am playing with the idea of seeding the new rock I’m adding with this stuff to help crowd out any algae issues that new rock tends to get when added to my tank

I used purple helix in my last 30 gallon tank, and it had TONS more coralline than my current 75, which only has a few spots after 4 years. But, it also has always had an urchin munching around... hopefully if i seed it good it will grow quicker than it can eat it in the display.

 

[rhitee93]

I'll be starting a tank soon, and am following along with great interest

 

[TonyJR]

I’m very curious how this turns out. My newest tank with dead dry rock was seeded for coralline with the same product, but the results were lackluster at best. After nine months I have a single tiny patch of coralline. I wonder if I kept my lights too low for too long.

 

[fredward]

My question to all the commenters is what was/is the ph of the tanks? Gotta keep it up there

 

[Red_Beard]

Hurray! The light showed up today. I was hoping it came with the rmr clips, but it does not. So, i am working on 3d printing some. Once it is all mounted up i will post a pic and talk about lighting schedule/ intensity etc. I also threw together an ATO with an arduino and some spare optical sensors i had (i wanted to try the new duetto, but my better half says i spent my allowance on the light... lol so i used what i had) to keep salinity stabile. I think also tomorrow i will re-test parameters and maybe dose up the cal level to the recommended 440ppm.

I’m very curious how this turns out. My newest tank with dead dry rock was seeded for coralline with the same product, but the results were lackluster at best. After nine months I have a single tiny patch of coralline. I wonder if I kept my lights too low for too long.

Yeah, maybe so. It does need some good light to grow. However my 30 gallon was illuminated with 2 36inch current ic's, and it grew pretty good, so you dont need a spotlight. I wonder if something else was holding it back like Alk/Cal or Ph or even some trace element maybe?

My question to all the commenters is what was/is the ph of the tanks? Gotta keep it up there

I am going to try and keep this between the recommend 8.0 - 8.3. I got some kalkwasser to bump it should the need arise.

 

[TWYOUNG]

Seeded my tank with pink and purple and it took seven months for the first small splotches to show up. For some reason it spread much faster on the cage of the power head.

 

[Jim Gomoll]

Seeded my tank with pink and purple and it took seven months for the first small splotches to show up. For some reason it spread much faster on the cage of the power head.

Same here. Took along time to get started. Grows great on glass and power heads. Only a few spots on 2yr old dead corals and dry rock structures.