Crazy coraline! Like i have NEVER seen

[Wiz]

Thought this was definitely worth a share. Saw a post on my other forum for a free tank breakdown. Take it all it said. Didnt have time so i told a buddy. He got over $1000 worth of equipment and stock for free! There were a few things i wanted so my friend let me have them. A 6" abalone, a large flame angel and CRAZY CORALINE!
This tank had been set up for more than 10 years! Said he stopped caring about it two years ago. Has not change light bulbs or anyting. And I believe it. The one thing I wanted you guys to see on this, even though most of it is amazing is the coralline algae.
I have been in this hobby for more than 10 years and I have never seen anything like it. Every Rock in his tank was covered with shelf in Coraline. Absolutely beautiful in my opinion. When my buddy went to break it down he said that the slightest touch would crumble it. So you know that this guy has not put his arms in his tank for a very long time.
I was lucky enough to get a 6-inch Abalone, a a large flame angel, and a bunch of shelves of Coraline. I'm so psyched I hope it lives.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2005293883070390&id=1523667064566410

 

[wattson]

Plating Coraline algae,,looks super cool...like it alot

 

[Arron209]

Time to sell some frags of it!

 

[Xmoji]

Time to sell some frags of it!

$500 a frag!!

 

[Wiz]

LOL wouldn't that be nice

 

[75pxatr]

It would be interesting to know his water parameters. I have seen a few tanks with coraline "dripping" of the rocks but never understood what was unique about those set ups to grow it like that.

 

[Wiz]

Unfortunately the water is all gone now. But the two year old light bulbs in his fixture and complete lack of corals other than button polyps might be why they were soaking up so much of the calcium. Just a guess though. And if you knew how brittle this stuff was I would say that one of the main factors would be to not touch your tank because you would crush or break it immediately

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I had a similar experience with my first tank that I had 25 years ago. When I decided I was incapable of keeping anything alive, I left the tank running with lights and heat, but only topped off with tap water. When I took it down about 2 years later, I could not believe the coraline growth. It was about 1/4" thick in places on the glass. Lots of critters were still alive as well snails, crabs, and aiptasia.

I think the key to getting crazy growth like this is for coraline to be the only calcifying organism in the tank. Hmm, this gives me an idea on a good way to get a nice coraline coverage on a new tank build.

Dennis

 

[grassy_noel]

Wow! Looks like tiny Monti Caps...bet there really would be a market for this stuff. With the right sized fish, you could really create a "nano" tank that was all to-scale miniatures...

I'm having a heck of a time getting coralline to take root in my new tank (20 gallons, ~6 months). I started with dry rock and got a few snails that have their shells covered in it. My Ca and Alk are pretty stable around 420ppm and 8.5dKH, but I think my handfull of corals are sucking it all up.

I'm thinking about trying some Atlantic Reef Conservation coralline in a bottle. Anyone had any luck with this?

 

[Wiz]

I have never tried it but if you do let us know how it went

 

[grassy_noel]

I have never tried it but if you do let us know how it went

Will do. I'm about to move at the end of March. When I get everything set back up and stable after that, I'm planning to give it a try. I'll make a post once I do...

 

[jda]

A bit of daylight spectrum, low phosphates and some stability will really make the stuff take off. If he did nothing for two years, the sand was probably buffering when the alk would get too low and the PH would swing a bit. Remember that purple coralline grows faster with less light.

The only reason that I have to clean my Tunze Pumps is when the coralline stops them from flowing:

 

[Wiz]

That's pretty cool man. My tank is a good 4 years old and does not have nearly that amount of Coraline.

 

[ShadowR55]

I need some coraline to seed my tank....

 

[cil311]

I was able to have my coraline start growing like crazy (including plating) by leaving on actinic lights only for a couple of weeks. The closer to the lights, the better it was. None of my coral seemed to suffer. I'm not sure how long they could have survived with actinic only. After two weeks I got paranoid and started ramping up my daytime lighting again. Some of the coraline seemed to bleach once the bright lights were back on for a few days.

 

[MUSBFRANK]

I always see tons of coraline in tanks that clearly are not being taken care of or no much effort put into them, always.

 

[John Ostler]

wow is that cool!!

 

[Tommy's Reef]

Nniiccceeee!!!

 

[cil311]

 

[mjk250]

Do you know what kind of salt he used? I had lots of that when using oceanic salt years back, after I switched to salinity it scaled back and is now just "normal" flat type. I miss it, twas very interesting