Anyone else have the "problem" of not getting any coralline algae growth?

[Canadian]

I re-setup my tank when I moved at the beginning of August. You can see in the pictures below that I have basically no coralline algae growth either on my LR or anywhere else for that matter but I still have pretty decent coral growth. There's a bit on the pumps but that's it. I'd actually prefer to have my LR be purple but the predominant coralline algae color in my tank is pink.

I've flipped back and forth between thinking I might have too much or too little phosphate and nitrate which is effecting my coralline growth. Other than my pH being a little depressed my water parameters are within typical values for an SPS dominated tank:

SG - 1.026 (35ppt)
Temp - 80
pH - 7.9-8.0
Alk - 10 (Elos)
Ca - 490 Salifert - I'd actually like to get this lower but I don't see it harming anything)
Mg - 1400 (Elos)
PO4 - less than 0.03 with an Elos kit (this includes doing a heat PO4 test)
NO3 - 0 (Salifert but was also 0 with Elos before I ran out of reagent)

Anyway, part of my struggle with the too much vs too little PO4 is that while I get negligible readings for NO3 and PO4 I do have some tiny spots of hair algae growth which means there's something feeding it. It looks to me that my frequent basting of the LR actually causes some of the detritus to be caught by the little bits of algae and it's using this detritus as a food source. I've been playing with running and removing my phosban reactor and that doesn't seem to make any difference. The only time I've noticed any appreciable coralline algae growth was when I first set up the tank after moving and I put a SSB in for about 3 weeks.

Any and all comments/suggestions are appreciated.

Here are some pics just in case they might help (they were taken right after doing a water change today so the GSP in the bottom left are closed up). You'll also notice that most of the SPS appear to be pastel and washed out like you'd see with too few nutrients but as I mentioned above I do still have some pest algae growth so I'm timid about dumping in amino acids or adding more fish (plus my crappy point and shoot digital camera doesn't do the best job of actually capturing an accurate image of the tank with the T5 fluorescents on):

[Delphinus]

FWIW, I find that if you have clams and SPS they tend to outcompete the coraline for Ca and Alk and coraline can be sometimes affected.

[Keri]

I found that my corraline grows Much faster in my softy tank Vs my sps/clam/mixed tank, I think Delphinus is right

[KrazyKuch]

Our 180G has the same problem with corraline but then again we have 12 clams so I think tony might be right, your corals are pulling so much or the calcium/Alk that it's not leaving much for anything else....plus coraline is a type of algea so I would asume it needs nitrates and phosphates to feed off of!!!

[tang daddy]

pretty clean tank...

I can see what you mean about no coraline which is odd as you set up the tank 4 months ago.

I was going to say that maybe the Mg was low but your elos test kits shows otherwise.

I was doing some reading on Mg and found out that it plays a huge part with stabilizing alk and Ca, also it is the 3rd most abundant ion in salt water and apparently the coraline algae has high magnesium content.

If you are intrested read this article: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/oct2003/chem.htm

I use to have nice coraline algae under the rocks with my MH and when I switched to t5 it all turned to algae, at first I thought the new light was to blame but now think otherwise with lots of calcium in my tank aswell I couldn't understand why the coraline was not so plentiful after reading the article on Mg I understand alittle more....

Btw what lights are you running and what salt are you using?

[awa1979]

I set my tank up in August and only recently started getting coraline on the rocks, but its taking a liking to anything plastic, my pumps are becoming covered in it, but the rock is showing it very slowly.

[reeferious]

just love that image of your rockwork reflection off your tank bottom.is it true that aragonite sand releases other trace elements such as strontium useable by inverts and possibly coralline and that different coralline strains prefer different light level? maybe dosing trace elements and putting in assorted coralline scrapings might kickstart process.

[marie]

I have enough coralline algae for my tank, your tank, and everyone elses tank . It's not because your tank is sps dominant because mine is too maybe its because of the clams but I suspect it has more to do with nutrient levels, it is an algae after all

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

I don't think its nutrient levels either though. Well I mean I don't think your going to get more coraline in a higher nutrient tank. My tank is always at 0 nitrates, 0 phosphates and I don't have a speck of nuisance algae but am getting a lot of coraline on the rocks. The only other algae in my tank is a ball of chaeto that doesn't really grow much.

I never got as much coraline until I started adding Kalk in my top off water (since kalk precipitates phosphates, that would explain 0 reading I always get). I think I agree that the corals/clams will out compete the coraline. I know before Kalk I was only using two part and would test the Ca every few days. I noticed that I would dose in the morning and get a Ca reading of around 400 and by the next day if I did not dose two part again, it would be mid 300's. And this is a tank with only frags. So the corals are using up a ridiculous amount of Ca each day. I think my clams are a big part of it too.

After dosing kalk though, the Ca never drops below 400 even when I forget or choose not to dose two part.

Just my observations...

[i have crabs]

calcium polygluconate which is what is used in most liquid calcium supplements is supposed to be the best way to grow coraline