coraline

[woogy]

My rocks have always been mostly brown, whiteish. I have very little coraline algae on my rocks. Should I get new live rock? Could it be my lighting? I only run a FO dual strip on my 29g.

 

[Kengaroo131]

keep your calcium level at like 420 and keep your water clean and it should dtart to grow. new light wouldnt hurt it but you shouldnt need new live rock. how long has the tank been up for?

 

[woogy]

tank is over 5 years old

 

[Kengaroo131]

ooh wow im surprised it hasnt slowly grown. what do you have in it?

 

[woogy]

as in livestock??

yellow watchman goby, pistol shrimp, cleaner shrimo, urchin, royal gramma

 

[Norward]

I have seen my coraline algae grow and fade over the course of nearly a year, but recently became concerned over a lovely piece of coral skeleton that was purple when I bought it and now has almost completely become grey. I only have 20w of trichromatic flourescent and do not test for calcium in my FOWLR.

 

[jamiep]

What type of urchin? Alot of them eat coralline!

 

[woogy]

yeah i have heard that before...it is a black spiny urchin...but i have had for about 3 years and even before that the rock didn't have much coraline...i use oceanic salt...should i change?

 

[Kengaroo131]

yea some urchins like to eat coraline that might be where its going

 

[jamiep]

does it look like this...

 

[BlazedDiamonds]

I use the T5 lighting and my coralline is growing great. Cost is about 60 bucks for your size tank (if buying Coralife- Aqualite- has actinic and 10K bulb in fixture. I use two for my 45 gallon that is 24 inches deep. Pleasantly surprised that I am able to shelter a carpet anemone that sits on the bottom as well as condy anemone, yellow polyps, pagoda coral, finger leather, trumpets, etc...most of these don't require high lighting except for the carpet). I do have a metal halide but I don't use it because there is no need - it evaporates the water very quickly, so I stick to the T5.

 

[kzickovich]

try buying a few pieces of rock from your lfs that has some on it maybe it will seed your rock

 

[woogy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11588917#post11588917 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jamiep
does it look like this...

yeah thats him allright and about 4x the size!!!

 

[Zoophile]

That's a pretty big urchin for a 29 gal. tank! Maybe trade him in at the LFS for a couple pieces of coralline encrusted LR to seed your tank with?

 

[stingythingy45]

If you don't suppliment calcium/alk or Mg or will never have much coralline.My tank is 6 months old and is loaded with the stuff.
Check out the gallery.

 

[woogy]

yeah pretty nice...i never add any suppliments to my tank...guess I better think about it