Is white the color of death in a reef aquarium?

[sanlynn]

Hi all,
First, thanks for the tons of advice given for my last query (Very newbie....). Unfortunately, we weren't able to follow all of it (hubby "closed" the deal with the LFS when I had a Dr.'s appointment - and I had done all the research)

In any case, as of last night our 150-gallon reef is now set up. The live rock came from Tonga and looked beautiful - had many areas of interest and some patches of red corraline algae. The tank was at 77 degrees when we went to sleep - and 82 when we got up! The LFS suggested we begin our light cycle of 12 hours actinic, 10 hours of white and lunar lights on 24.

When I saw the temp, though, I turned off the daylight, adjusted the thermometer downward and put up the room air conditioner (we haven't invested in a chiller and were hoping we wouldn't have to). The tank, after a couple of hours is now at about 81.

Much of the rock now has a white cast to it, though there are still patches of red and some green. One chunk of rock is REALLY white. Should we be concerned or is this common in brand new (less than 24-hour) tanks?

We'll be talking to our LFS later, but as someone posted here you guys have no axe to grind and aren't selling us something

Thanks again for your help.
Sandy

 

[ZooKeeper1]

82 degrees isn't that bad. so dont worry about that too much. what is happening is the coralline algea is having some die off. this is common even when moving a rock to a different location in a tank.
You might want to consider doing some water changes during the cycle. It may prolong the cycle a bit, but it will give the stuff living on the rock a better chance of survival.

 

[SnowManSnow]

I'm with Zoo on this one. With the die off your N's will also spike a bit. Don't worry... the cool stuff on the rocks will come back. Lots of places you buy LR suggest you cure you rock before it goes into your main tank.. for this very reason.. BUT you can cure it in ur main tank if its a new tank, and there aren't other organisms having to deal with the spikes.

Once you get past this stage make sure u cure ur LR in another tank,.... or plastic garbage can with light..air.. and heater.

Good luck with ur new tank!

 

[reefnewb1]

I still have a large patch of white "encrusted" algae or something on a piece of Tonga. It was there from the beginging, so I don't think that white in general is bad. The type of white you are most likely seeing is a bit slimey and loose on the rock. I'm with Zoo on the water changes, although I would monitor the water quality closely, so as not to over do it on the water changes. When I set up my new tank 6 weeks ago, I didn't even notice the Ammonia spike by the time I was testing (137 lbs, in 90 gallon) (I tested ammonia 5-6 days after putting rock in)

Hopefully if you purchased it uncured you removed the obvious nasty stuff that would require you to have a huge spike. Most LFS would do this before putting it in thier batch.

Personally I would decrease the light to maybe 4 hours of daylight, and 6 hours of actinic. This way you are less likely to create as much unwanted algae problems. My Coraline algae has rapidly returning for about 2 weeks, so that will be a good sign that you'r cycle is close to/ or complete.

p.s. to make sure you keep the ph, Calcium, and alkalinity in the "red zone" while curing the rock. the best information I found to understand this info was here on Advanced Aquaria Magazine. Chemistry in the Aquarium
(Randy Holmes-Farley) - tons of info!

check out this link: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/index/ChemAqua.shtml

I recommend the " Solving Calcium and Alkalinity problems" as an early read, as well as, http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/may2002/chem.htm

Good Luck! :wink: