I'd be interested in knowing about all of the different color forms of coralline algae.

Recently I've had two major changes to the system. I added a large number of snails which I purchased online but caused my tank to be on the verge of crashing because of a 90% mortality rate. (Still fighiting with vendor on that one) I've also added about 5lbs of garf grunge which introduced additional flora and fauna.

During the recovery of my tank, my purple coralline algae has started to die back a bit, with a big circle of it in the middle of the tank turning white. Once things settled, I've now seen what looks to be a really pale green coralline algae. Its definitely not "green algae". Its growing in calcerous circular patterns like the purple coralline does.

I'm wondering if this green coralline algae is from the garf grunge or the existing coralline being stressed from the sudden tank rebound.

sorry i have been a bit busy, on the forums much the last day or two...

so coralline.. yes, coralline comes in many different colors.. pretty much any color.. so im pretty sure it is coralline. now i cant say for sure what caused the growth of the green coralline, i am not that intimietly familiar with it. i will bring this up on the next show, but unfourtuanly i dont think i am going to have a boat load of info fo ya..

hopefully one of the other memebrs can help me out a bit, and provide some good info..

Coraline algae I have seen grow in red, green, pink and purple. usually your lighting has a lot to do with it. Coraline algae loves the blue spectrum and grows like wildfire under vho's. Some people say wait till you get a good Coraline amount of Coraline to grow then you know your tank is ready for sps corals. You need to maintain your cal, alk, and mag levels. Once these are where they should be, you should start to see it take off.
Snails have to be acclimated correctly before you put them in the tank. They are very sensitive to slight changes. Make sure you tank has finish cycling and keep your nitrates very low, close to zero would be good for them. Also salinity should be at 1.023-1.025 for these critters to do OK. 90% mortality rate is pretty high and I feel there has to be an issue there.

I'm running power compacts. 2x65W 10,000k and 2x65W Actinic bulbs. The tank itself is about 7 or 8 months old now. The live rock came from 3 sources, all fully cured. Several pieces of the LR came from my nano reef, some of it came from an LFS that had the LR for a while, but the majority came from a local hobbyist who was breaking down his tank due to a relocation. The rock from the other hobbyist was almost solid purple when I bought it, and helped seed my tank very fast.

I'm also running a CPR BakPak 2R and a sump that really only serves to increase the water volume at this point in time. I've been dosing kalk in my make up water and using Reef Solution and a few other additives as well. Everything had been doing well until I added the snails. I think where I went wrong was "trusting" the vendor when he told me to put them in the tank even if they seemed dead. I should have at least put them in a quarantine tank, thats my fault. The guy shipped them while the temps outside were below freezing at night, didn't use any insulation or heat packs, and shipped them Express Mail (overnight) but screwed it up so it ended up sitting in the post office an extra day.

"Everything had been doing well until I added the snails. I think where I went wrong was "trusting" the vendor when he told me to put them in the tank even if they seemed dead. I should have at least put them in a quarantine tank, thats my fault. The guy shipped them while the temps outside were below freezing at night, didn't use any insulation or heat packs, and shipped them Express Mail (overnight) but screwed it up so it ended up sitting in the post office an extra day."

There you go seems you found the cause and it may have caused a new cycle too.

Hello,

I am new here so hello to everyone. I have started a new reef about two months ago and am already seeing red and green coraline inabundance. I can also see smal amounts of light purple coriline growing more at the bottom of the tank in shaded areas. This must not like my metal halide. I am using one metal halide 400w made by Sunmaster This really kicks out the light and you can see strong ripples at the bottom of the tank as I was told this is what you want strong light penetration. I actually have two bulbs I am trying out. Ihave the Natural Delux from Sunmaster which has a large amount of the blue purple green and yellow spectrum, mostly yellow but higher blue then most metal halide. I also use a 400w yellow spectrum on it as well. Both seem to be liked by my octobubble soft coral which is doing very well. I also have one stem on my coral which seems to have closed up and is creating a calcium cap on it and it seems to be growing up. one day you will see it toally covered but can see sall holes which I am guessing coral is feeding and getting circulation through. The reason for the hiding and growth of the stem I would guess is there is a larger piece of octobubble beside it which may be not getting as much light as it needs so it is building up the stem to get higher. Does this sound logical? For the most part though the tank seems to be getting lots of coraline algae growth so far with mostly red coriline.

guys, quality water changes alone is enough to grow various types corallines. Problem is we have closed systems where nutrient uptake & waste products are in a constant state of competition. which besides keeping our other reef related animals happy, is the reason why keeping your Ca levels along with other elements up in the acceptable ranges.

That being said, any algae is a cellular body that uses carbons to reproduce & photosynthesis. Storing that carbon into a reef building glue for lack of a better word & you now have calcium carbonate binding structures.

Now remember these layers constantly shed just like our skin & in some species is completely normal, just like a dominate species of the conditions will over take another that is barely on the fringes of their ideal parameters. browns are over taken by reds - reds are over taken by greens, greens are over taken by purple, - now roll with me here on any or all the below -- we change our light, modify the range of parameters slightly for a specified period by going away on holiday, put in a few new rock biters that shear away the surface of a colony , modify the flow , aqua-scuplture ect ect & the conditions can change along with the colour. Purple has now just been over taken by green again. see were im going with this.

So relax, as i said, water changes & the rocks you already have in the system will cure the need for colourful rocks..lol

Hello saltreef29 and :welcome: to TR. Like V said, coralline comes in all colors.

I've heard that calcium reactors can promote the growth of red coralline algae. Although mine's been running for several months now, I'm loaded down with purple coralline....which my sea urchin LOVES to graze on...

I started off with uncured live rock that had a very small amount of green coralline on it and no purple to speak of. This pretty green stuff turned stark white a couple weeks later after only half an hour under metal halides. Luckily, the diatoms and hair algae hid the white bald spots for a couple more weeks!

After the new tank syndrome began to subside, I was stunned to see beautiful spots of coralline begin to appear. I've got dark maroon to light pink stuff growing. As stated above, it seems to like the VHO supplemental lighting rather than the MH at the top of the rocks or the 6500K I've got running in my fuge/sump (fump??). Oddly, the green that originally covered the rocks has yet to reappear.

Ive got some sort of slug that i call mad max! i usually only see what looks to be his @ss deep within the rockwork (typical slug) but he's having a field day in the nano, 1 centre piece of rock & ive seen more colour variations that come & go in the last few months than i care to remember. Doing rountine maintanence of the sump one day i found him hugging a pump, so i put him in the display so he didn't get minced by the prop of death, as mentioned i never see him actually active during the day, but i see the whiter snail trails curving or cruising the stucture from the night before & then a week latter new colour.

I had a bit of green coraline on my rocks when I first got them, but I never had much luck with it afterwards. It comes and goes sometimes, but never sticks around long. I have almost exclusively purple in my 120, but a bit of purple and a lot of pink in my nano. I have no idea what dictates what colors thrive in any given tank.

Yeah, I also have little bits of green that comes and goes. It tends to always be on my pieces of new live rock, especially the last two batches that I've bought. I wonder what we're missing in our tanks to keep the green stuff alive. ???

prob nothing RB, you;d prob find lighting & parameters are more often than not geared towards the liking of a more dominate purple variety that occupies the real estate

Hi FishStank and :welcome: to TR! It's nice to see another Raleigh-ite here.

Well after playing aound guys and gals I figured out that it was in fact the MH being on to much causing the red slime problem. I do however still use it 1 day a week for now mostly for my Maxima Clam and coral. My anemones seem to prefer the lower lighting in two strips of 420Actinic and one 6500k which is all I use the rest of the time. I added two turbo snails and 5 blue leg hermit crabs to the tank and they mowed the red slime and green slime down. I am now getting dark Maroon corialine algae and green coraline algae growths. I also noticed a few small feather dusters on the rock growing now I didn't or couldn't see before. I also changed the water I use, instead of using tap water which is filtered for 3-5 days I now use store bought RO water in the big jugs. About 15 bucks for a big jug but 10 of that is for deposit on the bottle, when you take it back to recycle you get 10 bucks back. I was told by someone if you don't want problems with contaminants this is the way to go. Also a question I have how important is strong current, should it be strong for reef aquarium or just make sure the tank has good circulation, I use mild circulation with a small power head, small filter, (no carbon just bio balls) and my sterilizer and skimmer. Also I noticed on here it says to click the peace sign under the persons name to show your appreciation however I am having trouble seeing this symbol or it does not show up for me, and of course I appreciate all of your comments. Thanks all!

Robb

Hey Robb - welcome to TR!

Using the MHs only once a week might not be enough light for your clam or your corals. Anemones usually also need a bit more lighting. Can you give us the specs to your tank? How big is it? How deep? Is your 6500K also a MH?

You might be having red slime (cyanobacteria) problems due to low flow. For a reef tank, you typically want to have 15-20 X turnover in the tank. Do you have a sump? If so, what's your return flow from the sump? How much flow are you going with right now. Flow will definitely help to reduce "dead" spots in the tank and help to get the debris up into the water column so that it can be skimmed.

It's good that you're not using bioballs - they can be nitrate factories. Speaking of, have you measured your nitrates and phosphates? High levels can also cause nuisance algae problems.

The peace sign is at the bottom of the post, in the light blue area, to the left. You can add to their reputation that way. Or, you can "thank" someone by hitting the "Thanks" button with the hand/thumb on the RIGHT side of the light blue strip after the post. Hope that helps! :D

Well here goes everyone is going to think I'm crazy but this is the way it is in my tank. The MH lighting gone. All the MH lighting was doing as creating red/brown algae. Now the spectrum of light from that was not pure actinic it was 60 actinic 40 yellow spectrum and green. All the light seemed to do was cause growth of undesirable algae, even my clam who is suppose to love this stuff hid for a few days then came back out when it was turned off. So I got rid of it and now only use two strips of actinic and one 6500k. I have had this on for a week solid and already without any supplementation am seeing increased growth of Maroon Coraline, green, purple and some white showing up now. The red algae is gone and the substrate is getting purple and green coraline growth. Whats up with this I was always told that intense lighting is needed to grow these types of algae. Well I am doing something right, any comments? Thanks guys and gals.