Algae?

Marsh980 · Apr 30, 2020

Evening all,

Can anyone assist me on explaining what is on my isolated separate rocks.

My tank is 8 weeks old so still a very new system and currently going through a little diatom bloom.

98% of the dry live rock used was the purple TMC Eco Reef man made porous rock but I also added a few separate pieces that I picked up from my holidays over 8 years ago. It was lying on the beach.

These pieces were white but you can see in the pics they’re changing colour and have what looks like green algae on them. I’m assuming in time they’ll turn purple with Coraline.

The tank is 200 gallons and my ammonia, nitrite are 0ppm. My nitrates around 2.5ppm

ndrwater · Apr 30, 2020

Looks like the very typical Diatoms.

Murica · Apr 30, 2020

Beginning of coralline

Marsh980 · Apr 30, 2020

Thank you guys, I thought diatoms were brown hence my confusion.

Thanks for setting me straight.

How long would it take for it to turn purple or is that a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question.

Murica · Apr 30, 2020

Marsh980 said:
Thank you guys, I thought diatoms were brown hence my confusion.

Thanks for setting me straight.

How long would it take for it to turn purple or is that a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question.

It varies, but probably within another month or two. Also, there’s many colors coralline can be, most is purple but some can stay green, blue, pink, red, orange...

Marsh980 · Apr 30, 2020

Murica said:
It varies, but probably within another month or two. Also, there’s many colors coralline can be, most is purple but some can stay green, blue, pink, red, orange...

Ahh that’s cool. I’m going to do some reading and research on Coraline as sounds very interesting.