Coralline no show

[AlgaeBarn]

Meh - my 40 went up in June with G3 Radions and (90%+ )dry rock and the back acrylic/bottom starboard are solidly covered - rocks are way behind, but are spotty. Its not LEDs.

Coralline loves SPS conditions - lots of flow, clean water, stable relatively high alk.


It also grows like sps - if you start with a tiny piece - it takes forever to get enough mass to start growing quickly. The advice people give that "you'll get it via frag plugs and snail shells" is awful advice - it takes FOREVER to get established like that.


Its a hugely beneficial reef organism - and its lack is a major driver in dry rock issues. Be aggressive in seeding it. I've added both ARC Helix and Fusion, in edition to a couple small covered rocks.

Yes, exactly! The bottles we sell from ARCreef are full of the spores needed to seed! ~Shaun K.

 

[anthonygf]

Meh - my 40 went up in June with G3 Radions and (90%+ )dry rock and the back acrylic/bottom starboard are solidly covered - rocks are way behind, but are spotty. Its not LEDs.

Coralline loves SPS conditions - lots of flow, clean water, stable relatively high alk.


It also grows like sps - if you start with a tiny piece - it takes forever to get enough mass to start growing quickly. The advice people give that "you'll get it via frag plugs and snail shells" is awful advice - it takes FOREVER to get established like that.


Its a hugely beneficial reef organism - and its lack is a major driver in dry rock issues. Be aggressive in seeding it. I've added both ARC Helix and Fusion, in edition to a couple small covered rocks.

I am transferring from 46 to 75. Should I scrape all the coralline algae and put in the new tank?

 

[Nano sapiens]

Meh - my 40 went up in June with G3 Radions and (90%+ )dry rock and the back acrylic/bottom starboard are solidly covered - rocks are way behind, but are spotty. Its not LEDs.

Coralline loves SPS conditions - lots of flow, clean water, stable relatively high alk.


It also grows like sps - if you start with a tiny piece - it takes forever to get enough mass to start growing quickly. The advice people give that "you'll get it via frag plugs and snail shells" is awful advice - it takes FOREVER to get established like that.


Its a hugely beneficial reef organism - and its lack is a major driver in dry rock issues. Be aggressive in seeding it. I've added both ARC Helix and Fusion, in edition to a couple small covered rocks.

While LEDs have worked for you and others to grow CCA, there are also many, many threads where experienced reefers keeping SPS with older systems and heavy CCA growth switched to LEDs and saw greatly reduced growth. While anecdotal, I do believe that there is something lighting type related that *can* influence CCA growth.

My 20+ year old CCA still grows slowly on the LR when space is made available, but very rarely on any of the walls or the equipment...and I'm perfectly fine with that

 

[Nano sapiens]

I am transferring from 46 to 75. Should I scrape all the coralline algae and put in the new tank?

Yes, that should help.

 

[ScottR]

My tank is less than 2 months wet and is covered with coralline. I see it as a pest to be honest. My secret? Using rock from my older broken down tanks.

 

[waynel]

I'm just a beginner, with my tank being about 6 mos old now. I use viparspectra LEDs, and most of my CA is on my powerheads and the return plumming. So far, I've only got a few small spots on the glass that scraped off pretty easily when I clean with my tunze scaper. I'm getting a lot more CA in my sump under my LED grow light, for whatever reason. I have all liverock that has a lot of CA, but I may have too many urchins (all came as very small hitchikers, getting pretty large now) and I think they're keeping the glass free of CA.

 

[92Miata]

While LEDs have worked for you and others to grow CCA, there are also many, many threads where experienced reefers keeping SPS with older systems and heavy CCA growth switched to LEDs and saw greatly reduced growth. While anecdotal, I do believe that there is something lighting type related that *can* influence CCA growth.

My 20+ year old CCA still grows slowly on the LR when space is made available, but very rarely on any of the walls or the equipment...and I'm perfectly fine with that

Reef tanks are enormously complicated.

If I can grow it quickly under LEDs, then LEDs *in themselves* are not the problem. It may be that older LEDs had poor spectrum.

What is more likely is that when people change to LEDs from MH lights - something else in the tank changes - most likely coral growth rates in general - which affects everything from nutrient uptake to dosing to ambient levels.

It grows like a weed under high flow and low-but-not-0 nitrate/phosphate levels. If I add Phosguard/GFO - it immediately stops. If I ramp up refugium lighting hours, it stops.

It basically doesn't grow at all in my wife's tank - which has the same lights and skimmer - and was dosed/seeded exactly the same - but has much less flow, and because of that, much higher nitrate/phosphates.

 

[SPS2020]

I also have a viparSpectra 300watt (running very low numbers) over my 65g and coralline is thick. Four Hydra32 HD's over my 100g and nothing thus far (yay). Also had halides back in the day and coralline was thick then too.

 

[Nano sapiens]

I'm just a beginner, with my tank being about 6 mos old now. I use viparspectra LEDs, and most of my CA is on my powerheads and the return plumming. So far, I've only got a few small spots on the glass that scraped off pretty easily when I clean with my tunze scaper. I'm getting a lot more CA in my sump under my LED grow light, for whatever reason. I have all liverock that has a lot of CA, but I may have too many urchins (all came as very small hitchikers, getting pretty large now) and I think they're keeping the glass free of CA.

Interestingly, CCA has a much greater affinity for plastics than glass.

 

[waynel]

Interestingly, CCA has a much greater affinity for plastics than glass.

That would explain my sump, powerheads and plumbing!

 

[Nano sapiens]

Reef tanks are enormously complicated.

If I can grow it quickly under LEDs, then LEDs *in themselves* are not the problem. It may be that older LEDs had poor spectrum.

I agree, older LEDs with their typically limited spectrum may likely have been a factor. So we should now see that the newer model 'full spectrum' LED arrays should be more capable of growing CCA. Sometimes this is so, sometimes not, likely due to other system factors.

What is more likely is that when people change to LEDs from MH lights - something else in the tank changes - most likely coral growth rates in general - which affects everything from nutrient uptake to dosing to ambient levels.

I'd agree that this is a distinct possibility. Still, the change was brought about by switching from one lighting type to another (LED), it's just that the cause of slower CCA growth may be an indirect consequence. Interestingly, I don't remember reefers back in the day having noticeably slower CCA growth when switching from MH to T5 (or visa-versa), or switching bulbs for a different spectrum.

It grows like a weed under high flow and low-but-not-0 nitrate/phosphate levels. If I add Phosguard/GFO - it immediately stops. If I ramp up refugium lighting hours, it stops.

It basically doesn't grow at all in my wife's tank - which has the same lights and skimmer - and was dosed/seeded exactly the same - but has much less flow, and because of that, much higher nitrate/phosphates.

Looks like there is a 'sweet-spot' flow and nutrient wise for the type(s) of CCA in your aquaria. Leads me to think that the 'sweet spot' we use for our coral may not always overlap with the sweet spot needed by the particular CCA present in a system. Does seem to make a compelling case for adding as many different CCA species as we can get a hold of if the locally present coralline are not performing well...

 

[GillMeister]

I know I have plenty of flow with 3 WAV pumps cranking through massive amounts of water and an Icecap Gyre 3K moving water on the back wall. It has to be lighting or a lack of nutrients. I see some people aren't wild about having it in their tanks but I see it as an essential part of the ecosystem. It inhibits nasty stuff like GHA and it looks nice. I have a hunch it somehow keeps the corals happy as well.

I've tried dosing with one supplement so far. As I mentioned I didn't see results but I'm open to trying something else.

 

[GillMeister]

This looks like a nice topic for some structured experiments. I hate to see Ryan and the crew at BRS get burdened as the source of all these experiments. Is there anyone else who has the knowledge and resources to determine what the contributors for increasing or decreasing coralline growth are?

 

[Nano sapiens]

I know I have plenty of flow with 3 WAV pumps cranking through massive amounts of water and an Icecap Gyre 3K moving water on the back wall. It has to be lighting or a lack of nutrients. I see some people aren't wild about having it in their tanks but I see it as an essential part of the ecosystem. It inhibits nasty stuff like GHA and it looks nice. I have a hunch it somehow keeps the corals happy as well.

I've tried dosing with one supplement so far. As I mentioned I didn't see results but I'm open to trying something else.

With so many different CCA species living in different reef niches, I can see where 'one size doesn't fit all' when considering the optimal environmental variables. As far as nutrients go, a lack of nutrients (NO3 and PO4) has been widely reported to impede CCA growth in aquaria. I find this interesting as a pristine natural reef often has much lower nutrient levels than our aquaria, yet it grows there quite well. Could also be that the various CCA species reside in specific micro-niches where different-from-reef-normal nutrient levels suit them.

 

[ReefLab]

Lets end this "LED's can't grow coralline algae" myth once and for all.

Take a look at Nathan Willard's tank lighted with only kessils: absolutely covered with coralline!

switching from two part to Kalkwasser made coralline start to really take off in my tank. I'd either start dosing kalk, running a CO2 scrubber or otherwise raising pH as close to 8.3 as you can.

 

[Doctorgori]

my power compact reef used to require coralline scraping/ quarter inch from all areas with a razor twice a year or the entire glass would blot out. after installing kessil led's I have not seen a spot of new coralline since 2015. i miss the scraping.

Kessils ain’t hurting mine
I totally zapped all the purple in this tank just a few mo’s ago (I’ll find the thread), anyway its going nuts....
I use Brightwell Kalk+2 , just started 2pt at 33ml

 

[LegendaryCG]

I have coralline development in my new tank after 2 months but I did seed it with the bottled stuff from arc reef.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Lets end this "LED's can't grow coralline algae" myth once and for all.

Take a look at Nathan Willard's tank lighted with only kessils: absolutely covered with coralline!

switching from two part to Kalkwasser made coralline start to really take off in my tank. I'd either start dosing kalk, running a CO2 scrubber or otherwise raising pH as close to 8.3 as you can.

Uh yea thats definitely not true. I have too much coralline under just LED in my tank. Only thing that slows it down is my urchin going nom nom on it.

 

[brandon429]

I was dosing c balance two part back then and have stopped but anywhere corals grow should be same needs for crustose cousins and for sure the system is already seeded my live rock is about 20 yrs old w original coralline.

the change in lighting never killed off my lr growths of coralline, just zero new and zero on glass its only the common haze we have to clean depending on system balances etc

I would consider adding new seed no harm in trying the supplement or scrapings if avail

 

[92Miata]

With so many different CCA species living in different reef niches, I can see where 'one size doesn't fit all' when considering the optimal environmental variables. As far as nutrients go, a lack of nutrients (NO3 and PO4) has been widely reported to impede CCA growth in aquaria. I find this interesting as a pristine natural reef often has much lower nutrient levels than our aquaria, yet it grows there quite well. Could also be that the various CCA species reside in specific micro-niches where different-from-reef-normal nutrient levels suit them.

This is an oversimplification though - 'nutrients' (phosphate and nitrate) is really a proxy measurement for latent levels of both food and waste byproducts - and that means drastically different things in a tank vs in nature.

In the wild - .001 ppm phosphate is still an inexhaustible supply of phosphate - and a coral is constantly being bathed in food particles - something we basically can't do without turning our tanks into cesspools. Whereas in a tank - you could have .001ppm phosphate because you feed a ton and export a ton and flux is high - and corals are fine - or you could have .001 and you feed less and export less and your corals are starving.