Rocks aren't turning purple :(

Coralline doesn't like the intense light of some of the more powerful led lights. in the ocean it's found in caves and under cliffs. most of mine in my tank is in the shadow areas but when I had mh or t5 it was everywhere and when I switched to led it slowly went away
 
I have both problems.. My 105g with an 8 bulb powermodule barely grows coraline algae ( 8 years old) and my new less than a year old raceway needs bi monthly scraping to keep it off the viewing panes. I'm running 2x 250 radiums on movers in the big raceway and the coraline has became a PITA honestly.. It's everywhere and continues to propagate at every cleaning. I literally scrape more coraline off the acrylic than I do algae at this point.

One thing to note is my 105g has a bunch of asterina stars and they do eat coraline algae so I believe that is my cause for the minimal growth in that system but I don't think age plays so much of a role in it as stated above just from what I've seen in my new 220 and a buddies 175g. Both less than a year old growing at a stupid rate.. But both under halides =)..
 
When I set up my 20H last October (using dry rock) it was a glass tank. Lighting: Kessil 160 and I religiously dosed two part. Within a few months I was having to scrape coralline of the glass weekly. But the rock progressed much slower. A few months ago I transferred to a new acrylic 20H. The tank itself has zero coralline and the rocks are continuing their slow coralline additions (although once coralline gets started on acrylic it grows like wildfire). The dry rock just takes a long time to get pretty. Which is why they dye it coralline colors now. Just keep up on The 2 part and mag, maybe some encrusted rubble pieces....it will come. And once it's gets started it spreads fast
 
I started up a 40 breeder to get ready to redo my 120 and moved my frags to it. Had no coralline in the 120. One day my cat knocked my temp probe out and the temp spiked to 93 degrees. Melted my xenia, fortunately all else survived, I now have purple on that plug and am looking to see if it spreads.

The 120 is LED and the breeder T5s.
 
I am inclined to think lighting does play a major role, and that coralline does better under T5 and lower lighting systems, BUT I have a ton of coralline, piles of it in fact because it just flakes off the back, I also run a Hydra52 at almost 100%. Try introducing a small piece of rubble to seed and maintain the big 3. When I use kalk I can not clean coralline off fast enough.

I too have Hydras and have decent corraline growth. In my sump, I have a single LED Bulb for regular residential use and I'm getting ncredible growth. I've heard of people making slurry of calcium and macerated corraline algae.
 
I used purple up in one of my old tanks to get the rock purple, but perimeters ime also play a role in it.I have also noticed that under lower lighted areas purple grows better if my mag drops I don't get good purple growth on my rocks either .just my experience
 
Previous 55g using PC and NO fluorescent (50/50 white/blue), 2-3x/yr 5% water changes and 100% saturated Kalkwasser produced more coralline than stony coral growth. Tank was running for nearly 10 years.

Using some of the same live rock and live sand from the 55g, current 12g using mini T5s or DIY 'full spectrum' LED (30/70 white/blue), 10% wkly WCs and KW, grew just a little coralline growth on the overflow in 9 years (virtually none on the glass).

IME, higher nutrient levels and low-medium intensity, warmer spectrum lighting seems to facilitate coralline growth.
 
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