Benefits of Coralline Algae?

[125gSW]

6 months later, my base rock is now plastered with dots of green and purple coralline algae. And to be honest I only chased after it for the aesthetics but never really thought of the benefits of it. Are the benefits purely aesthetics or something deeper? Is it indication of tank health? Do fish/inverts benefit from it? Does water chemistry change due to them spreading?

Sorry for all the questions I just never really looked at coralline algae as a member of my tank

 

[ChiCity]

It helps keep nuisance algae at bay, but other than that and looking good, it really just saps elements out of the water column

 

[ChrisOFL]

In the ocean coralline algae helps build up the base of the reef. In our tanks it is purely aesthetic. It is also a sign of good tank health because coralline requires stable water conditions for proper growth and color.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I dunno. I didn't have a lot of corraline because I was running a lot of high par. Acros grew like weeds. So I don't think it's really all about stability.
I was running esv two part and had little , changed to TM balling and got a ton of pink.

Pretty much over it now.

 

[125gSW]

hmm does this mean eventually I'll have to supplement my water since it is taking elements out?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

hmm does this mean eventually I'll have to supplement my water since it is taking elements out?

Yes. It can have an effect on the big three. Cal alk and mag. But with a low stony coral load you can get by on just water changes easily.

 

[mfinn]

I always like it when it would get thick and start plating. Made some interesting formations, plus helping keep hair algae down.
Not seeing that so much anymore with leds. In my tanks it was more a mh thing.

 

[brandon429]

I use visual examples of coralline algae where available *lots* of times in cycling threads

We look for it as a sign of nitrifying bacteria, interestingly, where rock bacteria are in doubt.


No, nobody is secretly medicating live purple rock and rendering all the nitrifiers dead


Due to order of deposition on a reef, anywhere coralline goes a bacteria already beat it to the punch

Nowadays the painted live rock (Real reef rock, liferock) makes for a good pic confound, but not the spotty covered stuff it’s still easy to pick out from pics. the fake stuff looks beyond primo coverage.

Add to that list of benthic animals that verify nitrifiers in place beyond coralline where doubt exists: tiny serupulid worms adhered and accreted, vermetids, sponges, hydroids, foraminifera, and basically anything that takes two months or so to stick somewhere and set up shop.



Due to the multi decade issues with api ammonia, cross verifications were invented to show indeed that 1/3 of cycling reefs in the world don’t actually fail to convert the final .25 level of ammonia. Coralline is the best

 

[SuperDragon]

Coralline algae is like natural reef glue my sps and lps when they touch it encrust quickly it's also a sign that your water parameters are in check as well as husbandry. Congrats it took me longer than 6 months to see coralline algae there are many types colors and forms. When it's larger than a dime size then I feel safer putting in starter sps. I have rose plating coralline and love it.

 

[mgreenough]

This is the coraline growing in my sump that is lit by a 5400k led fixture and a marineled par20 algae bulb. It grows so fast and is plating over itself.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I am going to take the opposite view here. I think coraline is very important. My view is that it is a sign of a healthy tank and is one of the pillars of the food web. I know we tend to focus on the top level of the food web that we keep in our reef tanks (corals), but my view is that the other end of the spectrum is where we really should be paying attention to (micro fauna), and the corals will succeed naturally if they have a strong food web to build on. The common consensus is that when people are trying to make the leap to SPS and failing is that the tank is too immature to support SPS. In these cases the immaturity is the food web is not yet established, and coraline algae is an important sign that the food web is alive and well and is flourishing (in my opinion).

Dennis

 

[brandon429]

Agreed all.

Led lights suppress coralline a lot, so I miss the days of VHO, power compacts, where we could take a look at someone’s display tank coralline details and discern their alk and ca consistency from the last eight months in considerstion with any posted coral growth issues. (Plating over large patches of bleached coralline was inconsistent ion support indicator, that pic above shows darn good ion consistency)

sheck out the coralline from the power compact days. Pico reefers could plate coralline inside a coffee cup if needed then wear their purple badge proudly.

 

[lou dog420]

Unfortunately, asterina stars are currently eating all of mine.

 

[reefwiser]

Coralline is the baseline of stability I reset my tank in July due to issues with aptasia. Since then I have switched to ESV salt to get rid of the organic sand clay found in premade bucket salt. My coralline has taken off an my coral health has increased. Coralline is to me just an other coral animal it uses light an needs a stable calcium and alkalinity levels sort of like an encrusting moni.

 

[125gSW]

Interesting! Learning a lot right now and awesome pictures! And it looks like I'm on a good path

Since there's different "colors" of coralline, does that mean they're different from one another or is just pigmentation? Would I find one pigment in a specific region over another?

 

[Kershaw]

Keep it in check. I miss the days it couldn’t grow in my tank. This happened in a month while I was super busy at work and neglected my tank a little.

 

[125gSW]

Keep it in check. I miss the days it couldn’t grow in my tank. This happened in a month while I was super busy at work and neglected my tank a little.

Seems like I should invest in a scrapper the moment it gets on glass?

 

[FarmerTy]

I hate the stuff. Uses up my foundation elements and have to scrape it all the time off the glass. I'm glad my lights are too bright on the main rocks to grow any or else I'd be livid.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Agreed all.

Led lights suppress coralline a lot, so I miss the days of VHO, power compacts, where we could take a look at someone’s display tank coralline details and discern their alk and ca consistency from the last eight months in considerstion with any posted coral growth issues.

I didn't know LED's suppress coralline. Why is that? Not that I'm too upset about it but it may explain a little why the growth has been so slow with all other params where they should be

 

[mgreenough]

Dont agree with that, my photos above (in post #10) are from using 5400k leds over the sump.