Where to get rare color coralline algae?

AtomHeart

AtomHeart

New member
I am just starting a new tank with a mixture of Aragocrete rocks, and dry rocks from Marcorocks. I want to seed the blank white rocks with something other than the standard light purple, and pink coralline algae.

I have seen really beautiful coralline algae in light blue, orange, yellow, emerald green, burgundy, ferrari red...I would like to get one or more of these in the tank first, and give it a time to get a foothold before putting other things in that will bring in the pink/purple one that is so common.

Does anyone out there know of a place to get rocks with some of the more rare coralline algae colors on it that I can use for this purpose?
 
I somehow got very lucky with the rocks that I started my tank with. I've got purple (multiple shades), pink, green and red. I'm traveling at the moment or I would take pics. You bring up a good point as to how to propogate the various strains/colors of coralline. I wonder if you could scrape it, capture it in a vial and ship it? Interesting thought.
 
You might want to see if you can contact Blane Perun with that request. Blane (The PPE originator) has a website "Farms of TheSea" In any case several years (3 or 4) back he was selling coralline that he was attempting to propagate in a variety of colors, I do not see them currently being offered but an inquiry to him may yield something that he does not have posted.

Good Luck --landlord
 
Excellent! Thank you for the help. I have sent him an e-mail, and I'll see if he can offer help on this. I would love to have a tank with a totally different color scheme, such as oranges and yellows, or sky blues and seafoam greens.

If it doesn't work out that I can specifically propogate a specific rare color, maybe I can just seed my bare rocks with a live rock variety that is particularly colored with rarer varieties. Is Tonga or Marshall Island generally what I would want to get for more rare coralline colorations? What vendors have people gotten particularly colorful, well covered rock from? Thanks again everyone for your help.
 
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Generally you will have to introduce a rock that has the desired color you are looking for, so what I would suggest is browsing your lfs or if you have some friends in the hobby ask for a scraping of their rock. Even check Craig's list for folks shutting down their tanks oten they are trying to sell their rock in a hurry. Also Indo Pacific Sea Farms offers a coraline booster kit to help propogate the pink/purple variety. They sell two 3 inch cultured plates of coraline for around $30. Their site is ipsf.com
 
How about some like this
Picture132-2.jpg
 
Wow...I'd take purple if it looked like that in a HEARTBEAT! That's gorgeous man! I'd fill my whole tank with that stuff and never look back!
 
All coralline algae, due to their suite of photopigments, are some variation of pinkish/purpleish/reddish. There are encrusting algae that might be along the lines of what you're thinking of, but they aren't coralline algae ;)
 
Gotcha. Whatever the stuff in this photograph is...that's what I was talking about filling my tank with:

tongaslab10.jpg


Now that Sassafras has shown me that beautiful encrusting purple/red variety up there, I've opened my horizons beyond color, to include texture. If I can get that strain and get it to take over most of my tank, I'll be very content.

Looks like that strain will require really high calcium levels, but I can handle that.
 
Another thing to keep in mind is that (In My Case) the pinks and purple tend to take over in the long run. I had about 50 lbs of Khaelini (misspell) mixed in with another 100 pounds of liverock.

The Khaelini rock was fully encrusted with an olive green colored coralline. It's been three years and none of it remains. Everything was re-encrusted by the pinks and purples.

FWIW --landlord
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14107144#post14107144 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by AtomHeart
Gotcha. Whatever the stuff in this photograph is...that's what I was talking about filling my tank with:

tongaslab10.jpg


Now that Sassafras has shown me that beautiful encrusting purple/red variety up there, I've opened my horizons beyond color, to include texture. If I can get that strain and get it to take over most of my tank, I'll be very content.

Looks like that strain will require really high calcium levels, but I can handle that.
Click to expand...

Gotcha. The rock looks, to my eyes, like it may have been recently imported. Sometimes when coralline algae dies it does turn somewhat funky bright orangeish/pinkish shades. Some of the orange on that rock may also be bryozoans (hard to make out detail w/o a close-up). Some of the greenish patches are probably endolithes--algae that grow within the rock itself, not corallines.
 
I used to have green all over my rock but, the pink over took it, like it did every other part of my system, now its a pain in the keyster to get off the glass, pumps, etc.
 
Ive got some close to what sass has. Mine just popped up about a couple months ago.Any one know what it is called?

171951Pink_Algae.jpg
 
I like the plating varieties...wish I had some.

I almost ended up with a piece of branching coralline a few months back. Very neat stuff but I couldn't meet up with the guy (reefmaister) before he left town. I've never seen it for sale and didn't even know it existed before his posting.

CorallineAlgaeandZoopics020.jpg
 
The branching variety i have never heard of. I guess I was lucky when it came to coralline. I bought Walt Smith Premium Fiji rock and it my tank now has purple, red, pink, yellow, grey, and green. It will be interesting to see which one will take over. The fastest growing ones are purple, grey, and green. The slowest is the yellow.
 
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