Coralline Algae- Boon or Bane?

[rpisces]

The experts are saying that with the prolification of Coralline algae, nuisance algae would be gone and there will be more places for corals to grow.

I find that although the coralline algae is beautiful, it is also a bane because it has invaded into many of my corals! It has grown over my star polyps, blastomussa, organ pipes, acropora, zoantids and etc!

Anyway to stop them from overgrowing? I have to manually take my corals out and scrap the invading front away but it keeps coming back!

Rgds
khoo

 

[Randall_James]

Photos perhaps? I have never had coraline overgrow a live coral is all.

 

[Gundo5000]

Coralline growing over your corals. Wow, please get us a pic.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I would have to say it is a bane. I've had this happen. They grew over a few different patches of Zoanthids. I lost some Tubs Blues, almost lost some Gorilla Nipples, and almost lost some green and peach zoas.

 

[outy]

tell us more

 

[rpisces]

Here are the photos. Didnt show much of the coralline algae because I scrapped them off once in a while.

 

[rpisces]

Some more...

 

[xtm]

I've had Coralline grow all over my scroll coral.. it eventually took over the entire colony. Not to mention, scraping em off the back wall is a royal pain!

Some urchins eat coralline

 

[buzzee]

Are you dosing strontium?

It accelerates coralline

 

[GMAX]

I dose strontium twice a week and I have lots of corraline. I have to admit that I have never had the industrial strength version shown in those photos. Some of the photos make the corralline look like a scrolling Monti Cap!!

I do have pinks and purples and occasionally green, but the green pretty quickly changes to purple.

My wavebox and streams are covered in corralline algae. I have coralline growing on the sides of the refugium as it is plexiglass. I even get spots on the tank glass but I have a tank maintenance guy come bi-weekly and he scraps all that away. Nothing like the pic, though. And I have never lost a healthy coral to corralline overgrowth.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I never dosed Strontium and still had that problem. I think what's going on is it's a different type of coralline algae. Most likely a different genus than what most of us call coralline algae.

 

[cw150]

You might not like the choice, but moving to more powerful, lower K (like 10k) lighting may inhibit your corraline growth

 

[ATM]

want to trade rock!

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8036000#post8036000 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cw150
You might not like the choice, but moving to more powerful, lower K (like 10k) lighting may inhibit your corraline growth

I'm not sure that will help either, because my problem was under a 250w 10,000K Metal Halide on a 29g tank mounted about 8" above the water.

 

[javajaws]

What's your alkalinity? Have you tried lowering it to 8-9 dKH or so?

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

For me, I was running your typical water parameters.

Temperature: 80-82
Specific Gravity: 1.025
pH: 8.1
Alkalinity: 9
Calcium: 400
Magnesium 1250
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: <5
Phosphate: 0

I truly believe this was a different Genus of Coralline algae. I'll have to thumb through my books at home if I remember to.

 

[stereomandan]

Wow, that's impressive corraline.

Your parameters are spot on.

Personally, I like it on the rocks, but not on the glass. I haven't had it grow over my corals though.

I don't know of any simple solutions. Can you chip it off? That would be a pain, but might help before it gets too bad. It does look like it's a little "heavier duty" corraline than I'm used to seeing.

Dan

 

[Randall_James]

There is a genus of coraline that does grow like Monti's. It swirls up into rosettes etc. I had no idea it was that aggressive however. I have a couple small patches of the stuff but it has never gotten out of control...

 

[rpisces]

My lighting runs on:

- 1 150W(20K) AB x 1 150W(10K) ADA (just fixed)
(For 8 hours)

- 1 Philips T03 Actinic and 1 Philips TO3 Daylight
(13 hours)

I have a refugium with seratted macro algae and I think a thousand tube worms! The tube worm babies spread very fast! Each baby tube would be perforated in 2 or 3 places and new worms would come out! Some of them are now growing in my main tank. The babies would grow into adults as can be seen in the enclosed picture.

I have no skimmer and filter. Only an expired bag of flow through carbon. My water overflow from the main and pass through the refugium and up to the main again without any filtration.

I have not tested my water for a long time. I used to get 0 nitrate but 0.5ppm phosphate (about the standard of our local water supply). My carbonate should be around 8 - 10 dKH and calcium about 450 ppm.

I add Seachem's Carbonate and reef advantage calcium which contains NSW percentage of Strontium. I also supplement with Kent's Iron and Tech I. No other chemicals are added.

I think my coralline algae is a colonial type! And it is growing and plating quite fast. Chipping the older one is easier but the new growth is harder. My friends just harvested my corallined pebbles to seed his tank with is denude of it!

Sea Urchin could eat them but a certain type tends to stick up pebbles or loose mushrooms onto its body!

I feel that with such a coverage of coralline algae my snails would stave to death!

Rgds
khoo