Coralline lives for a long time...

[Footbag]

I just finished my cube build and went down to my parents basement where I have a couple hundred pounds of live rock sitting in a 50g garbage can with a heater and powerhead.
Most of the life has died off, but I'm noticing large spots of coralline that seem to have made it for the three years the rock was sitting. Can I expect this to be viable? The rock was sitting in the dark, but the pink and purple stuff looks like the real deal.
Really surprised that it was still colored up. Not like it was 3 years ago, but still a good amount of color to seed the tank.

 

[ToddG.]

Three years wow thats aged like a fine wine did you ever change the water or do anything in that three year time. corralline is tough stuff so i can believe it

 

[mille239]

I have seen this as well... cooked rock for 4 months in complete darkness (I know it's not 3 yrs) and the coralline algae was live and well! I've even had some live-rock in hyposalinity for 8 weeks, and though the coralline faded a bit, it bounced back as good as ever once the salinity was raised back to normal.. Very resilient stuff!

 

[Whisperer]

As long as the rocks do not dry up, the coralline algae may fade in the dark over time but will bounce back once placed under almost any lighting. JME

 

[Footbag]

No water changes, but I did empty all of my nano tankwater into the bucket about 2 1/2 years ago.

The water in the bucket is crystal clear.

 

[veocool]

any one have before and after pics of fully encrusted coralline growth on dead rock i.e. Marco rocks? Even with introduced corralline I have never seen it spread and fully encrust dead rock. Show me your b4 and afters .

 

[rbnice1]

All dry marco rock:


I mixed some old marco rock from my old 90 in:



3 months later:


Now 6months later you cant tell what was what.