No Purple?

Intricateart · Feb 7, 2014

We have had our reef system running for about a year and half now and absolutely love it. Always learning more about water chemistry and filtration. Our only real complaint is our lack of purple coraline algae. The system is a 150gal with a 55gal refugium. Running a 250watt 14k metal halide and a 48" actinic. 950 gal/hr return pump, DIY skimmer. Zoa growth has been great. Xenias and 8 tentacle polyps have exploded. We have an estalished deep sand bed in both tanks collected from the wild. Micro life is extensive with the mysid shrimp swarming in the refugium. No fancy equipment and the entire system was DIY. Our nitrates have been low (5 ppm) for months now. PH is 8.2, and the calcium is at 400mg/l. Unfortunately we don't have testing equipment so we tested at our LFS. We have had a few nice patches last a long time on the live rock, once in a while slightly fading but then comes back. We were really hoping to have it all over the glass and be scraping it off equipment but still just some patches. Is it time to invest in the other test kits,magnesium ect. Maybe a reactor or tank controller(topics I've started researching)? I do know we need to work on our phosphate levels 2-3ppm. We also went thru a full bottle of purple up over time. Any help would be great.

becca10 · Feb 7, 2014

Are you dosing your tank?

camelcruiser · Feb 7, 2014

Do you have any coralline in your tank? If not it won't just start growing your going to have to get some in your tank before it takes off....usually it will grow on everything if it's in the tank.

fishroomlady · Feb 7, 2014

you can dry seeding the tank with chips of coralline from your LFS's tanks or from a friend's tank. You don't want to keep adding purple up - it's basically calcium and some other things that you can't test for.

Reefing Madness · Feb 7, 2014

Purple Up just raises dissolved calcium levels, it shouldn't be used to anything.
You need to test for Alk and Mag as those 2 along with calcium are key to coralline growth
Alk 7-12 (preferably 8-12)
Mag 1250-1350
Yes, you need to get your Phosphates under control also, as the algae will compete with coralline for life, and the aglae wins that one out. If you have some, and get those numbers inline, and the phosphates down you'll be pulling your hair out in no time.