Marco rock taking forever to develop

[reef’r]

Has anyone else experienced this using Marco? Tank was started back in march and was 90% dry Marco and it seems like it’s taking FOREVER for the rock to mature. The other rock I have in the tank (not Marco) seems to be doing much better with coralline growing in, even starting to get a little coralline on one of the power heads but the Marco just looks like Marco except for the absolute explosion of GHA growing out of every nook and cranny. I figured by now, 9 months in, this tank would be a little more settled in.

 

[lbacha]

Is your Alk/Cal/Mag in line and stable, are your nutrients at a reasonable level and do you have a good CUC. You should be seeing tons of coralline coverage in the tank. GHA means your tank is cycled and should support Coralline if you don't see it growing all over then you probably have a deficiency somewhere and as a result the GHA is growing in it's place. My new tank had 160 pounds of new Marco rock and once it got over the initial diatom stage it started growing Coraline all over. It is now 10 weeks old and I have 1/4" + specs of coralline all over and where there isn't coralline my CUC keeps any green algae in check.

 

[Tinnerito]

Has anyone else experienced this using Marco? Tank was started back in march and was 90% dry Marco and it seems like it’s taking FOREVER for the rock to mature. The other rock I have in the tank (not Marco) seems to be doing much better with coralline growing in, even starting to get a little coralline on one of the power heads but the Marco just looks like Marco except for the absolute explosion of GHA growing out of every nook and cranny. I figured by now, 9 months in, this tank would be a little more settled in.

How long is "forever"? I had some marco in a system for 7 months, and as of today theres a lot of developement of all kinds of green and brown algaes, but green is the only varient of coralline I can get if that's what you're getting at :/

 

[rhitee93]

How old is your tank? This is a slide show of weekly snapshots of my tank in the first year if you want to see how my marco rock developed. You'll have to ignore the first few seconds of build photos.

 

[landlubber]

in my tank unseeded dry rock in general took 18+ months to mature where there wasn't a back and forth struggle.
While i'm not a huge fan of taking the risk of introducing issues into my new tank I will never attempt another start without including at least one piece of established rock from a mature system

 

[reef’r]

Is your Alk/Cal/Mag in line and stable, are your nutrients at a reasonable level and do you have a good CUC. You should be seeing tons of coralline coverage in the tank. GHA means your tank is cycled and should support Coralline if you don't see it growing all over then you probably have a deficiency somewhere and as a result the GHA is growing in its place. My new tank had 160 pounds of new Marco rock and once it got over the initial diatom stage it started growing Coraline all over. It is now 10 weeks old and I have 1/4" + specs of coralline all over and where there isn't coralline my CUC keeps any green algae in check.

All params are within “range” despite me trying to dial in my kalk dosing for Alk. Tanks is 9 almost 10 months old

 

[reef’r]

How long is "forever"? I had some marco in a system for 7 months, and as of today theres a lot of developement of all kinds of green and brown algaes, but green is the only varient of coralline I can get if that's what you're getting at :/

Almost 10 months. I have little algae growing on the Marco except GHA lol

 

[reef’r]

in my tank unseeded dry rock in general took 18+ months to mature where there wasn't a back and forth struggle.
While i'm not a huge fan of taking the risk of introducing issues into my new tank I will never attempt another start without including at least one piece of established rock from a mature system

The back and forth definitely is what’s hindering the tanks “stability” every time I let the new type of algae sit for a few weeks and see if it’ll naturally go away I’ll have to intervene and disrupt the tank. The latest in the battle of hair algae is removing all the substrate, good times

 

[M4sonic]

My Marco rock tank is nearing 3 months old and I'm starting to see small nodes of coraline growing all over so im considering that a win.

Especially since the rest of the tank is covered in sca dino's

 

[machmachmach]

My Marco rock installed on my 265G from February has gotten reasonably mature at this point and is mostly covered with coraline, but I’ve been dosing a ton of trisodium phosphate for months to keep PO4 off of zero.

 

[FernBluffReef]

Took about 3 months for me to start seeing coralline on my all MacroRock start. After 6 months pretty much all the rock covered. Now at a year the coralline grows fast. I did not seed other than what comes on frags and snails. Like Macmachmach above, constant dosing of PO4 and occasionally nitrate required even with a bunch of fish. The MacroRock seems to be a major phosphate sink. Along with nutrients, making sure elemental levels (CA, ALK and Mg) were right.

 

[Lavey29]

My Marco rock tank is nearing 3 months old and I'm starting to see small nodes of coraline growing all over so im considering that a win.

Especially since the rest of the tank is covered in sca dino's

Probably ain't coralline at 3 months. Coralline shows up on plastic parts like powerheads typically long before the rocks. You just have colored algae forming. Rocks will be brown, green, red, purple, etc... over the course of the first year as they mature. May start seeing coralline at 6 to 8 months on average.

 

[FernBluffReef]

Probably ain't coralline at 3 months. Coralline shows up on plastic parts like powerheads typically long before the rocks. You just have colored algae forming. Rocks will be brown, green, red, purple, etc... over the course of the first year as they mature. May start seeing coralline at 6 to 8 months on average.

Sorry LoL

 

[Lavey29]

Sorry LoL

Looks good and exceptions to the norm happen especially if someone is a very experienced reefer or relatively new. It's much more common to see coralline starting around 6 months with dead rock tanks and typically around 10 months to see coverage on multiple surfaces. Also your post history indicates your tank is over a year old so one should expect to see coralline in the tank by then.

 

[Fishn28]

How old is your tank? This is a slide show of weekly snapshots of my tank in the first year if you want to see how my marco rock developed. You'll have to ignore the first few seconds of build photos.

what size tank is that?

 

[Lavey29]

Has anyone else experienced this using Marco? Tank was started back in march and was 90% dry Marco and it seems like it’s taking FOREVER for the rock to mature. The other rock I have in the tank (not Marco) seems to be doing much better with coralline growing in, even starting to get a little coralline on one of the power heads but the Marco just looks like Marco except for the absolute explosion of GHA growing out of every nook and cranny. I figured by now, 9 months in, this tank would be a little more settled in.

The GHA stage is typically followed by the coralline stage.

 

[Panda Jerk]

My tank started Jan of 2024 with butt-white Marco rock. The first few months it was dreadful looking. It began to take on a grayish color and in the last 4 or 5 months coralline is taking over.

I dose ESV 2 port and Tropic A & K trace. Never done a water change.

This is interesting timing. I moved a rock that was in place until last week. You can see the white which was submerged in substrate, the grayish coloring and coralline.

 

[reef’r]

The GHA stage is typically followed by the coralline stage.

Well I was absolutely crushed by the GHA phase so fingers crossed lol