Is this coralline?

[Kodi01]

I'm cycling my my 10g and I have some light to dark green and pink growths on my live rock that I'm hoping is coralline that will spread around. It's hard and doesn't wipe off with a finger and protrudes slightly from the rock surface and is in a few spots on my rock. Here you can see what I'm talking about in the middle of the picture.

If it is what's the best way to get it to spread to my other rocks?

 

[Brian Kim]

Hard to tell from looking at that picture. I've noticed on all of my 4 tanks that they start growing on the powerheads and return nozzles first, check if you see any there.
I've seen some people using "Purple Up" but not sure how effective they really are.

 

[Brian Kim]

Oh by the way, welcome to R2R!

Hate to say this but most likely cyano bacteria if your tank is new and still cycling. I believe coralline algae starts growing at around 5+ months

 

[Kodi01]

Yeah it's only been running 10 days. It is live rock though so isn't it very possible it already had some coralline?

 

[Brian Kim]

Yeah it's only been running 10 days. It is live rock though so isn't it very possible it already had some coralline?

Absolutely, if you purchased live rock. Sorry, it looked like dry rock from the picture.

 

[Kodi01]

It was pretty cheap so the quality I can't vouch for, but it did have quite a few sponges that died off in shipping.

 

[Kodi01]

It is pretty gray...

 

[mannyhernz]

Nice starter setup..like the rockwork.

 

[Kodi01]

Thanks. If only I could grind down the left side of the cave so it looks more natural.

 

[Kodi01]

So I scratched and rubbed against the greens and pinks and some surface crap came off, but none of the algae. They're super lime green after rubbing all of the nonsense off!

Without flash

With

 

[Kodi01]

What are the extremely dark purple/almost black spots? More coralline!?

 

[Kodi01]

Holy crap. I took a soft toothbrush to the rock and it turns out...

It's all coralline. It's so colorful and I had no idea. It was covered in dead matter and sand crap (I added live rock and sand at basically the same time for whatever reason).

 

[john.m.cole3]

It is pretty gray...

I really like your aquascape. If it is coraline, it will spread as long as your big 3 (alk, calc, and mag) are up and stable. What kind of test kits do you have?

 

[john.m.cole3]

What are the extremely dark purple/almost black spots? More coralline!?

most likely

 

[Kodi01]

I cleaned the large rock and rearranged (temporarily). Yay or nay?

 

[john.m.cole3]

You have some good aquascaping skills. I like this look better. 2 islands that vary in size w/ a cave.

 

[pondman]

Nice rockwork you have.you will find in time your rock will take on a lot of diff colors good luck in your tank.

 

[Kodi01]

Well since you guys inflated my ego I rebuilt again. This ones my favorite.

 

[sebo18]

I would definitely go with this version.

 

[john.m.cole3]

sweet arch for softies and LPS. I'm gonna need you to come by this weekend when I do my scape on my new build. How long does it take you to arrange eachscape?

I rescaped my first tank 4 times and it got better with each attempt.