Coralline.........Where art thou?

[peterh1975]

Hey All,
Its been almost a 4 months and no Coralline has kicked in? my Alk is 3.6 and Calcuim is @ 450, what am i doing wrong here? i hear people here have coralline growing in there tank in 2 weeks but mine seems to be going no where? I guess my calcium reactor is garbage and i only see about 8 blouches of green coralline on my heater wire only and the rest seems not to grow? I add a LR that was filled with purple coralline and al it does is seem to get burned, of course it was under MH. Perhaps i can run to kragen auto and get a couple of spray paint and make my own coralline?

 

[2poor2reef]

My experience has been that corraline can take a while to start growing, especially in a highly lit tank. But once it starts it grows consistently as long as alk and ca are maintained. This all assumes that you have active corraline spores to begin with. Which it sounds like you do.

To this day, none of my tanks grow corraline like my low-light polyp tank. It has 36w powercompact lighting, is only 12g, and has a royal tux urchin that eats all the corraline it can scrape. My highly lit tanks grow some but at maybe 1/3 the rate of my little dim tank.

 

[Reefguide]

I began adding Reef Vital to kinda jump-start the growth, and my coraline began to glow and spread very quickly after that.... Also helped with an Ich problem i had, but thats besides the point....

 

[gt8448a]

My experience with coralline algae is rather limited, but it took mine a very long time (i.e. 6-7 months) to start to pop up. Once it did, however, it has almost been uncontrollable. Patience, my friend!

Harrell

 

[Anonymous]

Becareful what you wish for it may just happen.

4 months though? Man you need some patience.

 

[danmhippo]

IMHO, Green Algae on the glass is a hell lot easier to manage then coralline algae.

 

[Anonymous]

Just be patient. At some point you'll be wishing it would just stop growing.
In my experience, no dosing or special management is necessary for coraline to grow unless your tank is full of SPS or clams. Water changes now and then are more than enough.
Jim

 

[Broke reefer]

If you want to jump start coraline take a small rock with coraline from a friend and scrape it in front of a power head. this will spread spores in the tank. that will speed things up. HTH

 

[reefmack]

I'm going to second JimM here - there will come a day where you wish your coralline growth would slow down (or stop)! mine is out of control and it's a pain in the arse to clean off the glass - there are some hard to reach spots in my 75 gal that i can't even SEE through anymore because the coralline is so dense.

 

[peterh1975]

Hey Guys,
So far i only see red dots appearing on my LR and my crushed aragonite. I was hoping for a sh$% load of coralline but i guess there isn`t any showing. The red dots have a mixture of green showing as well, but i was hoping for it to grow everywhere, my lighting is from 8AM to 1AM.

 

[reefmack]

i don't know about everyone else - but mine has always started on the pumps/returns/bulkheads first, then the rocks, then the glass.... now it's everywhere - even all my snails shells 8O

 

[peterh1975]

Sounds like your tank is doing very well. I was hoping for it to start growing on my acrylic and pumps.....but i guess thats not happening anytime soon ? LOL. I reason i am hoping it would start is because i have to moniter my SPS for algea on parts that is snap off, i have to toothbrush them everyday!

 

[reefmack]

one thing i can tell you though is it took a while for me to see any at all... i didn't start getting really noticeable (and worthy) corraline growth for 3-4 months - and it wasn't REALLY exploding healthy for 6.

 

[Anonymous]

.... now it's everywhere - even all my snails shells

lol - same here. I have some hermits who's shells are so old and holey, I think the corraline is the only thing holding them together.

 

[peterh1975]

My coralline that was on my heater....which is about 8 bloucths worth is now burning off? maybe my halide has a big play since they are mounted only 5 inches above water. But my SPS and White Tip Bali is growing like mad. I am mounting my 150watt dual HQI DE tonite or maybe saturday and was wondering would this kill even more coralline that i am hoping for ? I know for a fact the other unwanted will kick in!!!

 

[AJT]

I think your photoperiod is kinda long. 8am to 1 am?? That is a long time for MH to be on. I have VHO's that come on in the morning, MH around 11 am & go off around 6-7 pm. & VHO's to about 9 pm. Total about 13 hours.

My .02 worth

Andy

 

[peterh1975]

Andy,
Hows the growth rate with your lighting that way? I am curious.

 

[Anonymous]

.... now it's everywhere - even all my snails shells

lol - same here. I have some hermits who's shells are so old and holey, I think the corraline is the only thing holding them together.

that's funny, guys.
my snails got coralline, too. :wink:

 

[AJT]

Everything is growing great, here is a pic, well I thought I could attach a pic.... What happened to the attach/browse option ?
How do you attach a pic with this format??

Think about natural sunlight & the hours it is out. I tried to somewhat mimic natural sunlight.

Andy

 

[SPC]

I have coralline growing on my culerpa in my refugium. 8O
Steve