Coralline algae in a bottle? Does it work?

[chicago]

My man concern is always. How is it prepared and what other tanks are near by. Ick aresol is always a concern. Is this product in fallow waters? I use to seed my tanks by scrapping pieces of coralline in the return flows. Or taking plates of it. Put in baggies crush is up into powder water like. Turn off pumps sprinkle across the rock scape. Let settle for an hour turn back on system. I would try arc. Just to get som either varieties . I would take scrapings from fallow systems only. Just my parianoa

 

[Land Shark]

Might just try a bottle of this soon. Since I only use dry rocks now. I dont want to deal with hitchhikers again but I miss the colors on the rocks.



Random and possibly stupid question for the coralline algae guru's here. Do the spores survive out of water and for how long? I just got a used tank on craigslist and there is a few little coralline spots left on the overflow. Is it worth scraping them off and putting them in another tank of mine?

Make sure you you have a magnesium test kit and are keeping your magnesium at NSW or slightly elevated to 1400. When magnesium is low, coraline doesn't grow and spread so well. If it's around 1400 and other params are in check, it tends to grow so well you will regret having it.

 

[Bmasculine]

I’ve never used this product but You can’t go wrong seeding from another tank these photos are less than two months apart. Just figured I’d show off since it’s what I grow best lol. Also you can qt inverts with coralline on them under very weak light and it doesn’t go away. I have it growing in some of the darkest areas of my sump ATTACH=full]927451[/ATTACH]

 

[Mjrdude1]

I tried for years to get coraline to grow in my tank, mostly to help keep hair algae at bay. I bought a bottle of the purple (no rock chunks in it) and now (a couple months later) I have it spreading on everything, yay! I'm sold on it working as advertised.

 

[KenO]

I received my bottles; 1 pink and 1 purple yesterday. I followed the instructions and put them in one of my tanks today. Neither bottle had a rock or piece of PVC in it. My new tanks were starting to get a few purple spots prior to these bottles. Both tanks are connected to the same sump, and have been wet since the first of October. Started with dry rock and I added a couple of rubble pieces from another tank after the cycle process. I got the coralline in a bottle to see if I could add more coralline diversity vs what I have in my other established tanks.

 

[Hermie]

Are you noticing if either strain is out competing the other, or is it staying with the 2 purple: 1pink ratio?

Well, there's supposed to be 6 "Strains" in each bottle. So it's possible some strains from either bottle would outcompete the others (intermix is what I'm saying).

I received my bottles; 1 pink and 1 purple yesterday. I followed the instructions and put them in one of my tanks today. Neither bottle had a rock or piece of PVC in it. My new tanks were starting to get a few purple spots prior to these bottles. Both tanks are connected to the same sump, and have been wet since the first of October. Started with dry rock and I added a couple of rubble pieces from another tank after the cycle process. I got the coralline in a bottle to see if I could add more coralline diversity vs what I have in my other established tanks.

It's a great ideally generally, but you'll never be able to say with certainty if the bottles worked since there was already coralline introduced before hand.

 

[KenO]

Well, there's supposed to be 6 "Strains" in each bottle. So it's possible some strains from either bottle would outcompete the others (intermix is what I'm saying).


It's a great ideally generally, but you'll never be able to say with certainty if the bottles worked since there was already coralline introduced before hand.

The rubble had purple on it, no pink. So if I get a bunch of pink, then I would have to say that it works, since I added a bottle of the pink and purple.

 

[Hermie]

The rubble had purple on it, no pink. So if I get a bunch of pink, then I would have to say that it works, since I added a bottle of the pink and purple.

well either way good luck!

 

[Afagard77]

Go to any LFS or fellow reefer that has a reef tank and ask him to 1 dead snail shell from their system with coraline on it. That's all you need to seed your tank. The bottled stuff doesn't work.

Definitely worked for me

 

[Mattyman67]

The ARC coralline In a bottle definitely works as I’ve used it. That being said there are others ways to get coralline and if your parameters aren’t right it won’t grow no matter what you do

 

[KenO]

I received my bottles; 1 pink and 1 purple yesterday. I followed the instructions and put them in one of my tanks today. Neither bottle had a rock or piece of PVC in it. My new tanks were starting to get a few purple spots prior to these bottles. Both tanks are connected to the same sump, and have been wet since the first of October. Started with dry rock and I added a couple of rubble pieces from another tank after the cycle process. I got the coralline in a bottle to see if I could add more coralline diversity vs what I have in my other established tanks.

I have to report back that my coralline never looked better. My rocks are covered in a reddish purple coralline. My other tanks that I did not add the purple and red coralline products to do not have the same vibrant colors of coralline. I would say it worked.

 

[Thaxxx]

The beauty of these products for the makers is there is no way to prove or disprove there validity. Every tank works at its own speed. Lighting, nitrates calcium, and every other parameter contributes. Mostly the placebo effect in my opinion. If you think it works, then it works.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

This is OT, but coralline related. This past week, during the Black Friday specials here, I stocked up on some ninja star snails. When the LFS staff member was bagging up my snails, he commented on one particular snail. It has branching coralline growing on top of it. It is in a couple of different places along the shell margin and looks like antlers. Fingers crossed that it lives (the coralline) and seeds into my tank and that an urchin does not come along and gobble it up before it can propagate.

I have been checking on the antlered snail every day just to make sure he is still right side up and not dead in a dark place. Acclimating snails is always a crap shoot for me. Sometimes I feel that I have done everything right, and they die anyway. In those cases I suspect that the acclimation at the LFS was probably botched and the snail was doomed when I bought it.

Hopefully I will have some neat coralline in the near future.

Dennis

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I needed some calcium chloride to make up some 2 part and stopped in to the same LFS I purchased the snails from. I took a peek into the tank with the snails to see if there were anymore with interesting coralline. I spotted this guy.

Instead of a few bits, he is pretty much covered in a forest of it.

Dennis

 

[inletfish]

I needed some calcium chloride to make up some 2 part and stopped in to the same LFS I purchased the snails from. I took a peek into the tank with the snails to see if there were anymore with interesting coralline. I spotted this guy.

Instead of a few bits, he is pretty much covered in a forest of it.

Dennis

send me some lol

 

[Hermie]

The beauty of these products for the makers is there is no way to prove or disprove there validity. Every tank works at its own speed. Lighting, nitrates calcium, and every other parameter contributes. Mostly the placebo effect in my opinion. If you think it works, then it works.

Placebo effect in reef tank... hehe that's a new one.

 

[Gw2kpro]

A lot of people here claiming it doesn't work without firsthand experience, or know what it is.

There's a lot of misinformation in this hobby, please refrain from adding to it.

Agree with this. I'm following this thread because I'm curious. It took me a long time to get my coralline going.

I haven't been able to find an experiment done with this yet. For example, 3 tanks one with no seeding, one with seeding a coralline covered rock only, one seeded with arcreef only; progress noted over time.

Has anyone seen something like this?

 

[Zoaologist]

Didn’t work for me.

 

[DarkSky]

Agree with this. I'm following this thread because I'm curious. It took me a long time to get my coralline going.

I haven't been able to find an experiment done with this yet. For example, 3 tanks one with no seeding, one with seeding a coralline covered rock only, one seeded with arcreef only; progress noted over time.

Has anyone seen something like this?

No, but since BRS is selling the bottles, it might be worth suggesting that they test this set up.

 

[DarkSky]

.. and I figure I'd add something more to this - a few local reefers have gotten a cup of coralline algae from me, I've been shipping some out and it really seems to kickstart coralline growth.

The more initial culture you introduce, the faster you'll see growth.