Does Coraline Prefer Red Light?

LilElroyJetson · Apr 10, 2019

The coraline has finally started popping up in my tank! I’m excited, BUT, unfortunately, it only appears to be growing in my chaeto reactor

. I used two bottles of bottled coraline about a month ago, I figured it was overkill but I wanted the purple and pink strains, and to speed up the process. I also scraped very little coraline off a piece of live rock into the tank shortly after the cycle. I’m running two Hydra 26 HDs on a modified Daxby schedule (shown below). My chaeto reactor is wrapped in a blue red LED strip and runs all night.

Might it be that my reds are too low on the Hydras stunting the growth of the coraline algae in the display tank a bit? I would think I would at least see some splatter on the live rock given how much is growing in the reactor. Curious to see if anyone has experimented with this! ;Bookworm

Doctorgori · Apr 10, 2019

interesting ...I don't know about red light but sounds plausible since plant grow lights employ red ...it also seems to love black plastic

LilElroyJetson · Apr 10, 2019

Doctorgori said:
interesting ...I don't know about red light but sounds plausible since plant grow lights employ red ...it also seems to love black plastic

It must love plastic in general because the only place it’s evident that it’s currently growing in my tank is on the inside of my acrylic reactor! ;Hilarious

Justfebreezeit · Apr 10, 2019

It often grows on plastic before it starts on the rocks. In every tank i've set up it grows on powerheads and abs bottom before it starts on the rocks.

LilElroyJetson · Apr 10, 2019

Justfebreezeit said:
It often grows on plastic before it starts on the rocks. In every tank i've set up it grows on powerheads and abs bottom before it starts on the rocks.

Interesting. Well nothing on my power heads or overflow box yet either! So I’m still curious regarding the red light inquiry.

LilElroyJetson · Apr 10, 2019

LilElroyJetson said:
Interesting. Well nothing on my power heads or overflow box yet either! So I’m still curious regarding the red light inquiry.

Well what do ya know! Apparently I just had to take a closer look...first spots of coraline algae on my powerheads and a spot on my back pane of glass. ;Woot Still pales in comparison to what’s in the chaeto reactor and no noticeable spots on the rock from what I can tell but I’m sure I’ll be complaining about not being able to keep it off my equipment in no time!

ZoWhat · Apr 10, 2019

Roxanne... you don't have turn on the red light

Cory · Apr 10, 2019

Mine grows in my fuge with red light too. But it also grows in my tank.

The corraline algae zone iirc is 20 meters on the reef.

LilElroyJetson · Apr 10, 2019

skimjim said:
Roxanne... you don't have turn on the red light

I think he was talking about a different type of red light lol.

MattJS · Apr 10, 2019

If it’s in your reactor, it should be everywhere soon
I’m curious if red light would grow it more quickly- even if it’s just in the reactor it’d help it to spread quicker into your display.
But even if it does, I’d still keep my reds down low on the main tank personally. Ecotech put a heck of a lot of time into what spectrums, and light intensities help coral growth. They came up with the AB+ schedule (which you can set your AI lights to if you ever want to give it a try), and the reds and greens are dialed way down. With all the time they put into that, I trust it.
I’ve had one set of lights malfunction, and it put the reds on 100% for just eight hours. This was only three watts total power, and it bleached/melted everything.

lapin · Apr 10, 2019

I have to agree with plastic and glass being its first foot hold.

LilElroyJetson · Apr 10, 2019

MattJS said:
If it’s in your reactor, it should be everywhere soon
I’m curious if red light would grow it more quickly- even if it’s just in the reactor it’d help it to spread quicker into your display.
But even if it does, I’d still keep my reds down low on the main tank personally. Ecotech put a heck of a lot of time into what spectrums, and light intensities help coral growth. They came up with the AB+ schedule (which you can set your AI lights to if you ever want to give it a try), and the reds and greens are dialed way down. With all the time they put into that, I trust it.
I’ve had one set of lights malfunction, and it put the reds on 100% for just eight hours. This was only three watts total power, and it bleached/melted everything.

Yeah I experimented with the AB+ schedule before settling on the Daxby (which isn’t much different in terms of intensity and spectrum, and I dialed down the reds and greens). I just liked the Daxby schedule for its shifts in lighting throughout the day, makes the tank a little more interesting to watch and delivers great results.

I agree on keeping the reds and greens dialed down, I don’t want to cause a nuisance algae outbreak or worse chasing coraline and I’m sure in a couple months it’ll be everywhere. Thanks for the reply!