Coraline growth

[McNasty]

Just wondering what some tank and lighting specs are and Coraline growth every one has.

I myself can not grow coraline in my main tank.

Lighting consists of

4 t5
1 400 w 14k MH
1 175 w 12k MH

tank size 90 Gallon

Calcium 475
Alkinity 4.5 Meq
Magnesium 1325
PH 8.2

Now in my refugium , also close to my skimmer i am lighting with daylight compact flouresent bulbs and coraline grows fine.

Can you have to much light for coraline growth?

[OCDP]

Weird.. I don't know for sure what's preventing it from forming.. but, I wouldn't be suprised if one day it just took over.

How long has the tank been setup?

[TheReefGeek]

Yes, lots of coralline is low-light coralline, which explains why your fuge has in and your display does not.

But there is coralline that likes higher lighting, so what I would do is talk nice to some fellow reefers, and get some scrappings from tanks with good coralline growth under metal halide. Crush up the scrapings really good, then let fly in your tank, and it will help populate your tank with higher light coralline.

[OCDP]

Interesting. Thanks for that.. learned something new today.

[Willow]

try some purple up, i lost a lot of coraline when i switched bulbs. i started doseing purple up and within 2 weeks i was scraping it off the glass.

[McNasty]

tanks been running 2.5 years, tried purple up I get little patchs, BUt i would expect alot more growth with parms I keep,. I does magnisum alot to keep it up where it should be, I have goptten some coraline from others perhaps I need more.

[GMGQ]

My pinksih coraline only grows in the display tank where there is minimal light (i.e. behind the LR, under the overflow box, etc).

The back of my tank is painted blue, so it reflects a lot of the light. I bet if it were black, coraline would grow all over it.

[Gizmo]

One Word: Magnesium

I had my tank running for 3 years w/o coralline, After a visit to Bev's place, and the talk I got about no one measuring or adding magnesium to their tank, I got going on it. Within one month I have a huge patch of it on the back of my tank where the water flow is the strongest. MAGNESIUM! - Thanks Bev

[Beverly]

Giz,

OMGosh! My name and magnesium in the same sentence :biggrin: And in a thread where Willow has posted :razz: That's just going to tick him off again :agrue:

Willow,

Sorry to poke fun at you, but it's just too easy not to sometimes :wink:

Anyway, time to be serious. Who makes purple up and what's in it?

[Quagmire]

http://www.mops.ca/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/skus/wt/WTCS-00530.asp?E+scstore

Purple up

[Beverly]

Thanks for the link :smile:

[TheReefGeek]

Anyone get good results from it, or is it just a waste of money?

[mark]

Lots of coralline growth on a 75g with 2X40w, same tank and 2X96w maybe a little slower.

[DanG]

Anyone get good results from it, or is it just a waste of money?


I've been using it for about 2 weeks now. I've noticed quite a bit more coraline lately. Some of the new patches are about as big as a quarter.

[StirCrazy]

One Word: Magnesium

I had my tank running for 3 years w/o coralline, After a visit to Bev's place, and the talk I got about no one measuring or adding magnesium to their tank, I got going on it. Within one month I have a huge patch of it on the back of my tank where the water flow is the strongest. MAGNESIUM! - Thanks Bev

Ok, forget Mg, his level is fine, one thing I noticed is the Ca level is way to high, try slowly dropping your Ca to about 400ppm and maintain it there.

another thing is Alk, what is 4.5 Meq in normal measurements? :mrgreen: I keep mine up around 11Dkh.

isn't it funny I have been touting the merits of Mg for about 3 or 4 years now and Bev starts last year and is famous for it :wink:

Steve

[StirCrazy]

Yes, lots of coralline is low-light coralline, which explains why your fuge has in and your display does not.

But there is coralline that likes higher lighting, so what I would do is talk nice to some fellow reefers, and get some scrappings from tanks with good coralline growth under metal halide. Crush up the scrapings really good, then let fly in your tank, and it will help populate your tank with higher light coralline.

for the most part all coraline will do high light if introduced slowly as not to bleach it (coraline bleaches it is dead). what does happen is the color will change slightly. for example my dark red turned a pink color, my dark purple turned a light purple/pinkish , and my blue turned .... almost a mauve color.

what I would do is every now and then do a little scrape of the coraline in the sump so the spores will get blasted through out the rock in the main tank. it will take a while but it will start growing. I think my tank went 4 months after I killed all the coraline off before it started. then it went very slow for a couple months and now if I don't clean the glass it is solid. the light purple/pink is the dominant color in my tank under two 10K HQI 250 watt SE bulbs.

Steve

[Murminator]

I get huge coraline growth under my PC's and under my MH and I do dose with MG. It totally covers my equipment 1st but vinigar takes it right off. Every once in a while I scrape it off and let it grow back as you can see on righthand side of 29G :mrgreen:

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=22291&page=3

[Beverly]

isn't it funny I have been touting the merits of Mg for about 3 or 4 years now and Bev starts last year and is famous for it :wink:

Steve,

I hardly ever have original ideas :razz: I must have picked up the Mg thing from you and simply ran with it :biggrin: Thanks for being such a good mentor :smile:

[McNasty]

I do not dose calcium, but i use a kalkwaser reactor to keep my alk and ph stable seems to keep a higher calcium yet it does not precipitate (snow) Mag I seem to have to drip every second day or it drops to fast to replenish, I tried purple up and not ticed no difference, I am wondering if it has to do with the blue back color i painted in the tank, Perhaps if i painted it blackl it would be better.

Coraline that does start growing in the tank will allways go white on me, so I am at a loss how some popel grow it like crazy and some people cant..like me LOL

[G1GY]

I had coraline growing in layered plates until I got an emerald crab. :(

Now only one coraline plate remains on a powerhead bracket. (The little monster can't get at it.)

[StirCrazy]

I do not dose calcium, but i use a kalkwaser reactor to keep my alk and ph stable seems to keep a higher calcium

guess what, your dosing Ca if you using Kalk :biggrin:

anyways by the sounds of it you are unballanced in your water chem.. Ca is way to high for your other readings.. are you using the reactor with make up water?

Steve

[Pan]

Just wondering what some tank and lighting specs are and Coraline growth every one has.

I myself can not grow coraline in my main tank.

Lighting consists of

4 t5
1 400 w 14k MH
1 175 w 12k MH

tank size 90 Gallon

Calcium 475
Alkinity 4.5 Meq
Magnesium 1325
PH 8.2

Now in my refugium , also close to my skimmer i am lighting with daylight compact flouresent bulbs and coraline grows fine.

Can you have to much light for coraline growth?

before my tank crashed...i had a lot of coraline growth...seemed to do better when i kep the lights to 8 or less hours a day....

[Aquattro]

Hmm, Ca seems a bit high for that alk level. Can you confirm with a second test kit?

(Steve, mEq/l x 2.8 will give you dKh).

[McNasty]

could be my readings are off, I am going to test again, I have often wondered about calcium as it never drops lower then 450, I may have to buy some new test kits and see if they are accurate.

[TheReefGeek]

Bring a sample into your LFS they should test it for free to see if your test kit is off.

[McNasty]

Bring a sample into your LFS they should test it for free to see if your test kit is off.
I live in winnipeg enough said LMAO.

I used the reference tests and it shows my results are alittle off but not by that much, My alk is still stitting close to 4 - 4.5 meq and calcium is still around 425 - 450, my ph is stable at 8.1 and has not changed and i recalibrated my meter just to make sure.

I am useing a prarie reef top off system and kalk reactor, and I was having my top off run through my reactor, so i changed the way my system tops off,

I split the line before it hits the solinoid so i have one line running to my reactor and another line strictly for fresh water. I set my drip rate at aprox one drop every 20 seconds or 3 drops a minute, so now when my top off comes on it will just be fresh water instead of kalk saturated water.

[TheReefGeek]

No LFS that can do saltwater tests in Winnipeg?

[Willow]

make sure you use a decent test kit like salifert. kalk alone will only maintain your levels around 385, even then you have to use a lot of it. i suspect you need a new test kit.

also despite steves freak of nature results in growing coraline, the rest of us have far better results growing coraline with lower light levels.

[McNasty]

I use the sea chem test kits, I am more concerned now by the steady climb in alkinity as the higer clacium should be used up in short order.