My tank has been up and running since 6 June 2018 (almost 7 months). I've been taking it extremely slow with filling it. First step was adding fish and after they were settled, then I turned my attention to focusing on water chemistry as it pertains to stony coral. At the end of October (2 months ago) I got serious with stability and my parameters fell in line: alkalinity 8.5, calcium 415, magnesium 1410.
Of course the first good signs of correct parameters is coralline algae. Seeded from a local reefer, I was able to attain some coralline in the form of a small piece of live rock.
As of a week ago, I haven't seen any growth of coralline but today I focused on a piece of live rock at the top of my tank, directly under the lights (Radoin G4 pro XR30's) running AB+ lighting, and I noticed what looked to be spots of coralline growing but something was off, It wasn't the variety of the common colors that coralline come in. To my eye, this looks black, I tried to snap some pictures but under the blue light it didn't turn out:
So I turned off the blues and snapped a few pics
Top Looking down
I took a scrub brush to it to see if it was an algae of some sort and it is hard, I do want to note that the color went from black to dark grey and that's what you see in picture no. 3. I then took my thumb nail and scraped it, it flaked off like coralline algae would.
Does anyone have any idea what this could be?
Of course the first good signs of correct parameters is coralline algae. Seeded from a local reefer, I was able to attain some coralline in the form of a small piece of live rock.
As of a week ago, I haven't seen any growth of coralline but today I focused on a piece of live rock at the top of my tank, directly under the lights (Radoin G4 pro XR30's) running AB+ lighting, and I noticed what looked to be spots of coralline growing but something was off, It wasn't the variety of the common colors that coralline come in. To my eye, this looks black, I tried to snap some pictures but under the blue light it didn't turn out:
So I turned off the blues and snapped a few pics
Top Looking down
I took a scrub brush to it to see if it was an algae of some sort and it is hard, I do want to note that the color went from black to dark grey and that's what you see in picture no. 3. I then took my thumb nail and scraped it, it flaked off like coralline algae would.
Does anyone have any idea what this could be?
