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..
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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.
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
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.
Last edited by FishStank; 02-22-2008 at 01:49 AM.
Reason: spellink
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.
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