Why no coralline algae?

M

MajorKook

Member
I have relatively new sps tank (about 6 months). My frags are growing nicely and have nice color too. However, there is no coralline algae in my tank. Well, I have some growing on the wet side of my MP10. The back wall of the tank is also black, but does not grow any coralline algae. How come I can't get any coralline to grow in my tank?

Params:

Calc - 410 - 430
Alk - 7.7 - 8.0
Mag - 1300
Phos - 0
Nitrate - 0

I do 5 gallon weekly water changes.
 
SupaJSK said:
I have relatively new sps tank (about 6 months). My frags are growing nicely and have nice color too. However, there is no coralline algae in my tank. Well, I have some growing on the wet side of my MP10. The back wall of the tank is also black, but does not grow any coralline algae. How come I can't get any coralline to grow in my tank?

Params:

Calc - 410 - 430
Alk - 7.7 - 8.0
Mag - 1300
Phos - 0
Nitrate - 0

I do 5 gallon weekly water changes.
Click to expand...

Did u notice is there any small white star fish on the rocks, glass?
I used to have lots of them, and they will eat up all my coralline algae,
after I bought a shrimp to eat them all...now my coralline start to grow :D
 
I think I would be happy with your situation. I have always had problems with coraline eating up all of my magnesium and calcium, not to mention all the alk that is depleted. I would rather my sps get all of that and grow faster.
 
I have found that coraline algae grows on any plastic first and then on glass. I just started a new tank and after a month I have coraline starting to grow on the top of my overflows, my MP 40 wet sides, and my PVC bottom. I think the key has been keeping my Ca at 480 to 500, alk at 8 to 10. Light also seems to make a difference. Coraline seems to grow faster in my frag tank with MH/PC lighting compared to my display tank with MH and T5. I would suggest boosting your alk and Ca a little and see what happens. After boosting give the tank a couple of weeks before you decide if that worked or not. Good luck.

Jim
 
I find that in my tank if my alk drops below 8-8.5 it starts to die off, my cal and mag are always high from the salt I use.
 
philipchan said:
Did u notice is there any small white star fish on the rocks, glass?
I used to have lots of them, and they will eat up all my coralline algae,
after I bought a shrimp to eat them all...now my coralline start to grow :D
Click to expand...

Off-topic, but I have those little white starfish. What shrimp eats them? I'd love to get one. I normally pull out about 30 at every weekly cleaning. Its a bit painful.
 
jsousa said:
Off-topic, but I have those little white starfish. What shrimp eats them? I'd love to get one. I normally pull out about 30 at every weekly cleaning. Its a bit painful.
Click to expand...

A harlequin shrimp will munch through the starfish, but just know that you will either have to have a good sump full of them to repopulate your main tank for food, or your shrimp will starve.
 
WhiteLightsaber said:
I think I would be happy with your situation. I have always had problems with coraline eating up all of my magnesium and calcium, not to mention all the alk that is depleted. I would rather my sps get all of that and grow faster.
Click to expand...

+1..........
Same here, IMHE
 
I have found that if you keep the Mag higher then the coralline will go crazy. I keep mine near 1500 and I get sheets of pink and purple that has to be scraped regularly. I have also noticed that PC's don't tend to really grow coralline that well (at least in my experience), so depending on your lights that could be an issue as well.

I would jack the CA and Alk up just a little and then kick the Mag up near 1500. If you keep it there for a few weeks I'm sure you will get the desired results.

-Ed
 
If you have another tank with coralline, scrape some of its glass (or rocks) and when it is settling out in the tank, scoop some water out with the flakes of coralline and pour into problem tank :)

^I did this in my 70g to speed up coralline, took about three weeks for it to kick in hard.

Or, get a snail/hermit with coralline all over its shell and put it into the tank, where he travels coralline will show up.
 
I have a black urchin in my 92 that leaves a trail of white on the rockwork where he has eaten the coraline off.

Just my 2 cents worth..

Thomas
 
If you want to speed up the coralline growth, you can do like suggested above and put in some scraped off coralline. I'm sure you have a local reefer who would gladly scrape off some out of their tank and put it in a little container.

I still suggest that you raise your Mag, CA, and Alk though. Mine is about 1500/440-450/low 9's. When my dosers run out and I forget to change the chems all coralline and coral growth comes to a halt. My Alk will fall radically in 1 day if I run out of chems!

-Ed
 
Thanks for all the info guys. I'll definetly start raising my Mag, CA and Alk.

Question though, how fast can I raise each up? I'll be testing daily until I get this stabilized at the new levels.

I'm pretty sure I don't have those little starfish. I've seen them before in an older tank. Are those little starfish harmful to anything other than coralline algae?
 
Last edited:
acro-ed said:
If you want to speed up the coralline growth, you can do like suggested above and put in some scraped off coralline. I'm sure you have a local reefer who would gladly scrape off some out of their tank and put it in a little container.

I still suggest that you raise your Mag, CA, and Alk though. Mine is about 1500/440-450/low 9's. When my dosers run out and I forget to change the chems all coralline and coral growth comes to a halt. My Alk will fall radically in 1 day if I run out of chems!

-Ed
Click to expand...


I voted Ed suggestion on boosting the 3 basic at that value. As I have gone through this situation on my 6-8 months tank age. No coralline and those time have not intoduced SPS yet. I suggest you follow the guide given by the reef calculator with raising them slow and steady.

http://reef.diesyst.com/cf/chemcalccf.html

This is how when my tank reach the age of 3yrs now. You can see the coralline algae on the rock works and back wall panel. Haha thats the time you will enjoy scrapping them regularly on the front and both side :lol2:
But not to worry with my rocks as my few types of sea urchin will deal with them :lmao: Decision is yours.
Sorry with crappy hp pic
IMG_3078.jpg
 
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