Why wont coralline algae grow in my tank?

[Zeal]

Magnesium at 1275 this morning.

 

[Scorpius]

Magnesium at 1275 this morning.

Little low for my liking. I shoot for 1400.

 

[Hemmdog]

It’s the asterinas. My 40b had the same issue until I finally manually removed all the asterina. Bump up mag a bit too.

 

[motortrendz]

Try using purple up

Purple up doesnt have any coraline in it. It's just a calcium buffer. But there is coraline additives you can put in your tank that claims to have "spores" for seeding pink and purple coraline. My buddy has used it and said it worked. Still took about a month before he started seeing small pink spots on things bit said now its starting to grow nicely. Magnesium is a big component of calcification. Steady all and calcium levels as well as good lighting.

Purple Helix Coralline Algae in a Bottle with Nitrifying Bacteria

Purple Helix coralline algae bottle contains live algae & nitrifying bacteria. Establish an organic balance in your fish tank while improving water quality.

arcreef.com

 

[Zeal]

Little low for my liking. I shoot for 1400.

Ill raise it this week and monitor.

It’s the asterinas. My 40b had the same issue until I finally manually removed all the asterina. Bump up mag a bit too.

Sadly I haven't found any harlequin shrimp in my area to kill them all

 

[Daniel92481]

All my corals grow. My SPS have polyp extension. Everything is happy but I just can't seem to get Coralline algae growth.

I tried scraping it off snails, having it seeded from LFS, nothing seems to work.

My alk is 9.0-9.3
Calc is a stead 440-450
Salt is 1.026

I really don't know what else I can do...

It’s because you haven’t played this song on repeat. Hope this helps.

 

[Hemmdog]

Ill raise it this week and monitor.



Sadly I haven't found any harlequin shrimp in my area to kill them all

I just manually took the ones that were stuck on the glass off every morning for a week. There was only a few stragglers left after that, I got them all eventually.

 

[Andrew Schubert]

I just posted my own thread on this earlier this week. I battled getting CA to grow in my tank since day one. Tank is now 18 months old. Anyways, I sent in my first Triton ICP test and discovered I had a little low amount of Boron. So I dosed some Brightwells Boron supplement, and within a week I've gotten an explosion of CA growing in about 50 spots on the bottom of my bottomless tank. Seeing how the bottle says it will enhance CA growth, I feel it was more then just a coincidence. Maybe something to look at for you as well.?

BoroChrom - Concentrated Boron Supplement

Overview Provides boron, a component of alkalinity that is also associated with improving color intensity of coral tissue through incorporation into red phytopigments. Encourages biogenous aragonite formation (increased growth rates of coralline algae, as well as skeletal growth in corals and...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I just posted my own thread on this earlier this week. I battled getting CA to grow in my tank since day one. Tank is now 18 months old. Anyways, I sent in my first Triton ICP test and discovered I had a little low amount of Boron. So I dosed some Brightwells Boron supplement, and within a week I've gotten an explosion of CA growing in about 50 spots on the bottom of my bottomless tank. Seeing how the bottle says it will enhance CA growth, I feel it was more then just a coincidence. Maybe something to look at for you as well.?

BoroChrom - Concentrated Boron Supplement

Overview Provides boron, a component of alkalinity that is also associated with improving color intensity of coral tissue through incorporation into red phytopigments. Encourages biogenous aragonite formation (increased growth rates of coralline algae, as well as skeletal growth in corals and...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

That is very interesting. The myriad of different ways that our tanks can differ from the norms without being obvious to the tank owner, always amazes me. ICP testing has made this easier to detect these differences. What salt have you been using in this tank if you don't mind me asking?

Dennis

 

[charlesk]

First, be happy that when coralline algae isn't growing it makes cleaning your viewing panes a lot simpler. As a person with a large acrylic tank I would gladly eliminate all the coralline algae from my tank if I could.

Second, I don't think there is any magic formula to it. Anything you would do to grow corraline would just apply to good reefkeeping in general, especially if you are already keeping SPS. Keep everything stable and be patient.

Great advice

 

[MichaelReefer]

Mine took about a month to start showing up. I upgraded my tank so had a bunch of white dry rock and wanted that algae so bad because some was white and some was red. A few months later and everything is now the same.

 

[Andrew Schubert]

That is very interesting. The myriad of different ways that our tanks can differ from the norms without being obvious to the tank owner, always amazes me. ICP testing has made this easier to detect these differences. What salt have you been using in this tank if you don't mind me asking?

Dennis

I have been using IO until about 3 months ago. I switched over to Zeovite, and wanted something more consistent with real ocean levels...so I am now using Tropic Marine Pro Reef Salt

 

[Andrew Schubert]

I have been using IO until about 3 months ago. I switched over to Zeovite, and wanted something more consistent with real ocean levels...so I am now using Tropic Marine Pro Reef Salt

Thought I'd share. Each one of the spots is CA starting to grow. Non of

it was there just 2 weeks ago

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Hello

I never grew a whole lot of coralline until I increased PAR by adding 4 T5 bulbs. My tank ran for over a year with very little growth (although SPS grew fine). Not sure if it was the spectrum or change in intensity but now it is growing like crazy, within two weeks of adding the hybrid fixture to my LEDs.

My experience is this ^^

My tank is a bit older. My coraline algae is very low, my rock is very old. I recently did a little experiment. I got a t5 hybrid and put my hd 52 into the hybrid. I have a 180 6 foot tank. I put a led on the right and left ends but left the center with only t5 lights. The rock with the t5 actually grew coraline and the led ends didn’t. After 2 months I have completely shut down the led at the ends and now it is starting to grow .there now

I did also bump mag to just over 1400, so that may have helped. As said though, it has benefits and negatives so don’t worry if everything else is fine.i would not start messing around with something that works just for coraline.

 

[Mical]

You can always use this - https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/red-sea-coralline-gro-500-ml.html

 

[Andrew Schubert]

You can always use this - https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/red-sea-coralline-gro-500-ml.html

I bought this stuff when I first started out without really understanding what it is. It's not to be used with 2 part or any other dosing. Basically if you have any corals, don't waste your time with it...its mainly for FISH only tanks wanting some CA growth.

 

[Andrew Schubert]

Purple up doesnt have any coraline in it. It's just a calcium buffer. But there is coraline additives you can put in your tank that claims to have "spores" for seeding pink and purple coraline. My buddy has used it and said it worked. Still took about a month before he started seeing small pink spots on things bit said now its starting to grow nicely. Magnesium is a big component of calcification. Steady all and calcium levels as well as good lighting.

Purple Helix Coralline Algae in a Bottle with Nitrifying Bacteria

Purple Helix coralline algae bottle contains live algae & nitrifying bacteria. Establish an organic balance in your fish tank while improving water quality.

arcreef.com

Interesting brs now sells this...

Pink & Purple Live Coralline Algae Kit

There is No Faster Way To Turn Bare Rock Into Beautiful Pink & Purple Coralline Encrusted Live Rock! ARC Reef's Bottled Purple & Pink Coralline Algae is a truly unique product that contains multiple species of live coralline algae spores and nitrifying bacteria in a single solution. Unlike many...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

From my experience it didnt work for me. I bought 2x the amount needed when I started my tank. And as I've said, didnt start seeing CA until 2 weeks ago. So unless this stuff took over a year to start working...didnt work for me

 

[RyanHoan]

I agree with chaz. I didn’t have any coralline growth until I stopped using GFO and reduced my NOPOX dosing.

 

[Gp!]

It’s because you haven’t played this song on repeat. Hope this helps.

Omg

 

[rmurken]

I’m in the same bot as the OP. Minimal to no coralline growth in tank that’s a little over a year old. I have some green encrusting stuff, along with a touch of lavender-looking growth. At first if I added rock or snails with pink or purple, it would eventually bleach and die. Now it’s holding its own, but I haven’t discerned any spread.

I’ve read that the more colorful corallines tend to like lower light, plus I added my first LPS, so I’ve cut my black box LEDs waaaaaaay back. I was probably massively over-illuminating my tank with too much white light anyway (it made the fish look good...).

I’ve heard of plenty of black box LED tanks growing coralline so I’m not giving up on that.

Will double check Mg, but I’m usually about 1600 on my Red Sea pro which is notorious for reading high.
Sorry for the hijack—hope the experience adds to the knowledge.