led lighting and coralline algae growth

D

dnejdl

New member
Well im looking for some info i have 2- 120 led setups and the coraline on the back of my overflows is green ? And the only thing i can think of is its because of my led setup ? i have a few pinks 2 and a few greens 2 ? just woundering if this could be makeing it green or what ? I do run gfo and carbon ? can somebudy help ? because im about ready to change it out to just blue and whites ? :deadhorse:
 
also i did just notice i do have alot of asterina stars but there on the rocks not on the back of the overflows were the coralline is green
 
I'm glad someone else asked this question. Have solid coral growth but no noticeable corallin algae. Been four+ months. Using two Radions on a 110gal. Ph 8.1, Ca 480, Dkh 8.5 consistently.

Is it possible that the LED light is more focused down into the tank and as a result, there isn't sufficient light going to the walls of the tank (would be weird but probably appreciated).
 
Stolireef said:
Is it possible that the LED light is more focused down into the tank and as a result, there isn't sufficient light going to the walls of the tank (would be weird but probably appreciated).
Click to expand...

I've had my tank up running LEDs for about 7 months now and I've got a mix of green and purple algae all over the back of my glass... about 2/3 of the way down, the rest which doesn't have much LED light hitting it directly has a light coating of a white coraline. The much more focused nature of LED lighting might be the cause of your lack of coraline on your glass.

As far as green algae goes I think it may come down to light intensity, I have a mix of green and purple algae all over my tank and the areas with purple tend to be areas closer to the LEDs, for instance the back of my tank is mostly green but my HOB overflow which juts out closer to my LEDs is solid purple, as well all my rock higher up in the tank shows spots of very thick encrusted coraline.

Coraline doesn't seem to be very pick to me, even my fuge which is lit by a single 23w 6500k CFL shows some thick coraline growth in areas, albiet mostly green coraline, though there is some purple. If you're not getting any coraline several months down the road, and you did have a seed rock to introduce it in the first place you may have low calcium.
 
I have led's.. and no shortage of coraline.. pink and purple.. no green... stuff grows like crazy for me....

It won't just appear tho... its gotta be seeded.
 
maybe its my cheaper leds there Bridgelux leds . not sure i know i have enough light i have 2 of the 120 kits over my 210 with 12 cree cool whites in the middle with 80 optics.
 
wow its been so long since i looked at them i have 144 leds sry . i do have 2 pinks and 2 greens dont know if this could make the coraline green or not ?
 
I have both green and purple appearing on my rocks but none of it is very thick at the moment. I do have some pink coralline showing up on the glass at the level of the substrate. My LEDs are probably about the cheapest you can get I think.
 
Elem7777 said:
I've had my tank up running LEDs for about 7 months now and I've got a mix of green and purple algae all over the back of my glass... about 2/3 of the way down, the rest which doesn't have much LED light hitting it directly has a light coating of a white coraline. The much more focused nature of LED lighting might be the cause of your lack of coraline on your glass.

As far as green algae goes I think it may come down to light intensity, I have a mix of green and purple algae all over my tank and the areas with purple tend to be areas closer to the LEDs, for instance the back of my tank is mostly green but my HOB overflow which juts out closer to my LEDs is solid purple, as well all my rock higher up in the tank shows spots of very thick encrusted coraline.

Coraline doesn't seem to be very pick to me, even my fuge which is lit by a single 23w 6500k CFL shows some thick coraline growth in areas, albiet mostly green coraline, though there is some purple. If you're not getting any coraline several months down the road, and you did have a seed rock to introduce it in the first place you may have low calcium.
Click to expand...

Don't think its my water quality since parameters are basically perfect. CA at 440, kh at 10, Mg at 1410, 0 nitrates. Used all live rock that had plenty of purple. Only thing I can think of is the lighting intensity from the Radions. Been paying with it bringing it down to about 75% and will see what happens.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2
 
bamf25 said:
My coraline has been very slow to grow also, but the coral seems just fine. No gonna complain.
Click to expand...

This has been a real head scratcher for me. In previous tanks, within a few weeks I had noticeable growth, especially on powerheads and anything else that was plastic in my tank. I'm running with very low nutrients and I wonder if that is playing a part. Unless I feed particularly heavy over several days, I really don't have any algae growth in the tank (very slight diatoms but that's it). I've always assumed that coraline algae is almost entirely fed by light but I guess a very low nutrient water column could also restrict growth.

If Randy Holmes-Farley is out there, I'd love your feedback on this.
 
Bump, anyone with Radions seeing good coralline growth? I have had them for two month and its bleaching the coralline I did have from the rocks in my old system.
 
I had some purple and pink coralline growing under my Elos E-lite Xp Color. Since I switched to my Radion Pro, my coralline is growing like crazy
 
Stolireef said:
This has been a real head scratcher for me. In previous tanks, within a few weeks I had noticeable growth, especially on powerheads and anything else that was plastic in my tank. I'm running with very low nutrients and I wonder if that is playing a part. Unless I feed particularly heavy over several days, I really don't have any algae growth in the tank (very slight diatoms but that's it). I've always assumed that coraline algae is almost entirely fed by light but I guess a very low nutrient water column could also restrict growth.

If Randy Holmes-Farley is out there, I'd love your feedback on this.
Click to expand...

Correct, very low nutrients will inhibit coralline algae growth.

http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_42/issue_5pt2/1119.pdf

From the article:

The epilithic algal community on coral reefs includes
small microfilamentous forms referred to as "œturfs," larger
frondose macroalgae including both fleshy and calcareous
forms, and coralline algae that form crusts on exposed reef
substrata (Littler and Littler 1984). The productivity or
standing crop of algal turfs (Hatcher and Larkum 1983; Williams
and Carpenter 1988), frondose macroalgae (Lapointe
1987; Lapointe et al. 1987), and coralline algae (Littler
1973) increase with increased nutrient availability on coral
reefs, confirming their nutrient-limited status. This nutrientlimited
status is most pronounced in the larger...

The study confirms what I have experienced in my own tanks. In my current tank I went from a relatively PO4 and NO3 rich eutrophic environment to a near oligotrophic one and coralline algae growth has slowed considerably.
 
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