Colors on Live Rock

[snowlynx]

Hi,

What are the various colors on Live Rock?
I am seeing red pink greens...

I understand the red is what we are after and that it depends on
water chemistry,etc..

I picked up a small piece to speed up cycle since my tank has dry
rock.

I also notice small black round spots, read these are sponges?
You can see a one in the middle of the photo.

What about the fibrous hairs floating? Is this bad?
There is so much different information online regarding live rock,
it is good but can also have contaminates and hitch hikers.

I put it in my tank then pulled out and used a toothbrush to clean it
up a litte with distilled water then out it back in.

Thanks

 

[Ryan Darilek]

This is a really loaded question which is probably why you haven't gotten any responses, but I'll see if I can help out here. First off, welcome to the hobby!! It's a rewarding hobby with lots of ups and downs, but it's incredibly rewarding Live rock is some crazy ****. Lol. Your dry rock will go through many stages and appearances as it slowly becomes "live" and its the PURPLE we want. The piece you have there in the pictures has appears to have Coralline (the purple, hard encrusting algae). As Coralline dies off (happens during transporting or being out of the water and is normal), it'll fade in color, appearing red, which is what you see on your piece. The greens are algae and those black spots are pores in the rock. Your current dry should go through stages something like this:
1. Bright white
2. After your tank nears the end of its first cycle, you'll see diatomaceous algae which is brown and... Ugly. It'll be everywhere (sand, glass, rock, etc.). This is when you'll know it's a good time to add your first inhibitants, a clean up crew.
3. More diatomaceous/brown, for a few months. Don't worry, it'll slowly subside.
4. ***... More diatomaceous.
5. During the diatomaceous stages, you'll see different variations of greens (bright greens to dull greens with hair like qualities (hair algae).
6. Coralline, the pretty purple stuff. This comes after the tank is well established and then the ugly algae starts losing the battle for nutrients and will subside.

Things you can do to help through the algae stages is to not over feed the tank, make sure you're not leaving the lights on too long each day and having a good clean up crew that eats the various types of algae.

Another side note, if you see any bright red (and beautiful) algae patches growing that's a bad thing that needs to be addressed.

If you've got questions, always fire away and always do your research and go slow in this hobby and things should go well for you


Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[zaitmi]

Looks good to me, but might need some time to see if hair algae comes.

 

[static916]

I honestly like seeing the variations on colors more than just a purple

 

[snowlynx]

Looks good to me, but might need some time to see if hair algae comes.

are those brown fibers hair algae?

 

[snowlynx]

Thanks Ryan for your detailed reply