Live Rock Turning a Rust Color

[SnakeEyes27]

I bought pre-cured live rock and had it along with my live sand in my tank for about 3 weeks (heated and with current). After three week my T5 setup arrived and for about the past week I've had the lights on a dust to dawn setup (7 hours 10k day light and 9 hours 460nm actinics).

Since adding the lights my live rock has strted to darken and parts now have a rust color to them.

Was hoping someone could let me know what this is, if its natural and if not if theres something i should do.

Thanks,

 

[Dre]

Maybe it's algae.Are you adding any chemicals to your tank? An over dose of kalkwasser did the same thing to my coralline algae.

 

[Social D]

Sounds like diatom algae it can look like rust, esp under 10k.

 

[Galantra]

Sounds like your tank is just cycling to me, that is just normal eventually it will stop and your rocks will get greener

 

[SevTT]

I bought pre-cured live rock and had it along with my live sand in my tank for about 3 weeks (heated and with current). After three week my T5 setup arrived and for about the past week I've had the lights on a dust to dawn setup (7 hours 10k day light and 9 hours 460nm actinics).

Since adding the lights my live rock has strted to darken and parts now have a rust color to them.

Was hoping someone could let me know what this is, if its natural and if not if theres something i should do.

Thanks,

Is it a really deep, rich rust-red, that appears to be growing out of the rock or plating them very finely? If so, I think it's just another species of coralline algae or something that's related, and it's not a problem, just great color. Some people's tanks' rock seem to be dominated by this kind of algae, and others have the purple coralline that's typical -- me, I've got both warring it out.

 

[SnakeEyes27]

Just checked and on a closer look it did appear to be algae.

Is there a way I can aid the purple coraline win this war? I just think its nicer looking

 

[SevTT]

Just checked and on a closer look it did appear to be algae.

Is there a way I can aid the purple coraline win this war? I just think its nicer looking

From what I've seen in my tank, the purple will eventually encroach on and dominate most of the brighter-lit areas, and the red seems to like to hold sway in the less-well illuminated areas, but I'm relatively new at this. I'd suggest keeping Ca+ and Alk well-supplemented and that'll pump up the coralline growth. It seems like the red stuff grows faster and is in an earlier 'wave' of rock-colonization than coralline is.

 

[SnakeEyes27]

Thanks again for the info.

 

[RAYISKING]

If you just started your tank even with cured rock you will go threw diatom to hair to red to coraline sometimes if you have your tank perfect with no nitrate or phosphate you will skip hair. get some hermits and snails to help out. You really wont see coraline until around the 4 to 6 mth mark