coraline algae

[paulamrein]

Looking at a lot of tanks, I am seeing all kinds of purples, reds and greens on the back of the tanks. Mine... not so much. I have a little of the hard purple stuff on my rocks but little everywhere else. Will that come in time? Or is it because I don't have any enhanced lighting in my tank. I just have the standard tank lights. Will I never see a good algae growth with those lights or what? I get a little cyno, but not the good stuff. Any thoughts? or am I going to have to break down and get better lighting. I really didn't want to get too involved with chillers and that sort of thing. I want to keep it FOWLR.

 

[hagfish]

You can get good lighting without getting a chiller. I had 500 watts of MH and 220 of VHO running on a 72 with no chiller. Temp stayed at 80-81.

Coraline grows best for me in areas of good flow. I've got a spot in my 90 where there is strong flow from a return and decent flow from a hob filter. If I put a plain rock there for a month or so it's covered in coraline. That spot grows it faster than any other that I've noticed.

 

[latazyo]

the key is fans

I only have 80g of water in my total system and I have two sets of lights (because its two tanks plumbed together) including MH, a mag 9.5 and a sedra 3500 in there and my temp is constant

I attribute it to the 2 fans that I have blowing huge air on my MH bulb...my reflector right where the bulb is is not even warm to the touch at the end of the day

 

[breutus]

Actinic does very little beneficial for a tank typically, The one thing it highly promotes the growth of is... you guessed it coralline algae. well the purple kind at least. it's also a big plus that it makes the tank look really cool.

If you could even manage to put in one actinic light of any kind it would make a difference on coralline algae growth.

 

[JxMetal]

coraline algae is sucky. it eats all my magnesium up! I continually scrape it off the back of my glass.

 

[trottman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10994152#post10994152 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JxMetal
I continually scrape it off the back of my glass.

that is why it eats your mag up... it has to constantly be growing to replace the part you scraped off.

 

[JxMetal]

but when I leave it, it just grows over itself and gets thicker.