Why wont coralline algae grow in my tank?

ajjw0828 · Dec 17, 2019

Had my tank running with cured rock in it for about 3 months. All Marco reef dry rock. Added 2 small pieces of coralline encrusted live rock when I added the cured rock to the tank. Have an apogee 520 meter and getting around 200 on the bare bottom glass and 500 just under the surface. 14” of water. Run carbon occasionally as needed. Have no nitrates and average .03-.05 phosphate. Just in the last couple weeks I’ve started seeing a lot of patches of coralline on the bottom and speckled all over the rocks. My alk is 8.5, calcium 440 and may 1560. Sps is growing/ encrusting. Noticed that since I added 6 big coralline encrusted turbo snails the coralline has been spreading more. Running DIY Rapid leds and 2 t5’s blue plus/ coral. Also using purple instant ocean salt. 2 gyres first flow. Never scraped coralline or anything. Hope this helps.

mattfish · Dec 18, 2019

Algae Barn sells a great product to spike corraline , Purple Helix and Pink Fusion , better than purple up.

Bill Bolton · Dec 18, 2019

Zeal said:
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...

Did you start your tank with real live rock, or did you bake and nuke the rock and scrub the crap off of it so it was just rock?
In over 30 years of reef keeping, I have never heard this issue, or known anyone suffering from it.
What do you do for lighting, ...... colors and schedule?. I did notice when I went from VHO to MH.... my coraline algae bleached and died out at the upper reaches for a few months. If you have some crazy LEDs.... recently installed, that could be contributing.

uhupong · Dec 18, 2019

Increase mg and you ll have it

PurpleMonsterSlayer · Dec 18, 2019

I think if you raise your mg levels you’ll eventually start seeing it but I wouldn’t waste my money on purple helix or any other coralline algae in a bottle it’s cheaper and you get to keep it if you buy a few snails with CA on the shell of some frags that have CA growing on the plugs. And t5 will help but also good leds will do the same as long as you have the color spectrum right. Adding purple up does help it grow a little faster if you have coralline algae spores already in your system. Remember it will take a couple months before you actually notice growth. High po4 and no4 wil make it harder to start growing and low levels on iodine will also inhibit growth but never add anything to adjust levels with out first testing.

Andrew Schubert · Dec 18, 2019

Bill Bolton said:
Did you start your tank with real live rock, or did you bake and nuke the rock and scrub the crap off of it so it was just rock?
In over 30 years of reef keeping, I have never heard this issue, or known anyone suffering from it.
What do you do for lighting, ...... colors and schedule?. I did notice when I went from VHO to MH.... my coraline algae bleached and died out at the upper reaches for a few months. If you have some crazy LEDs.... recently installed, that could be contributing.

This is totally not true. As stated early, I went through this same issue. Before I started getting CA to grow I search blogs about it as well. There are tons of people on here also wondering why they can't get CA to grow, but yet have great growth with SPS.

Oldsalt · Dec 19, 2019

Have you considered Red Sea Coralline grow? It worked for me, but I can't say with 100% certainty that was the magic bullet because it came in a kit for starting a new tank. I just dosed per instructions and let the tank cycle. That was just over 2 years ago and I had lousy (really lousy led lights for fresh water!) lights. All colours of coralline grew - lots were already on live rock too, but not colours that grew elsewhere. Now I have decent lights and lots of coralline everywhere. I never let it grab hold onto the front and sides of my DT though. The rear is a different story. The stuff is also growing in my refugium. Give it a shot.

Red Sea KH Coralline Gro 500ml

Coralline algae will grow naturally, without any special supplements in all reef systems optimized for hard corals. To promote coralline algae in fish only or soft coral aquariums the alkalinity needs to be maintained at approximately 3 meq/L (8.4 °dKH)

www.thetechden.com.au

mtnrunner · Dec 19, 2019

Dennis Cartier said:
As others have mentioned, coralline growth depends in a lot of things. Stable magnesium around 1350, not too high nitrate (high levels of nitrate tend to promote faster growing nuisance algae), light in the correct spectrum. As another poster mentioned, the addition of T5's can kick start coralline growth. In my frag tank, I found that adding T5's to my AP700 gave coralline the boost it needed to start to grow. Before the T5's, it would only grow on the front pane as the front pane received about 30 minutes of late afternoon sunlight each day. The coralline would only flourish where the sunlight struck the tank. I also noticed that frags that were in the path of the rays of sunlight, grew faster. That is what prompted me to add T5's to my lights.

As others have mentioned, coralline can be a pain to clean off panes for display tanks. In my case (for a frag tank) I use it as an indicator of an environment conducive to growth for corals.

Dennis

What bulb do you use in the T5?

Dennis Cartier · Dec 19, 2019

mtnrunner said:
What bulb do you use in the T5?

I used 2 Coral+ and 2 Blue+ bulbs.

Dennis

Casey Erb · Dec 19, 2019

Zeal said:
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 grows like crazy in my tanks. To the point that it’s annoying. I use RODI with instant ocean salt, my friend in Florida believes that’s why I have so much coralline, I have a suspicion that altitude plays into as well, I’m at 6000 feet. If your tank is stable and healthy I wouldn’t worry about it.

jwshiver · Dec 19, 2019

My tank is a 120 and is 4 years and 4 months old. This is a end view. The CA you see on the overflow is the only CA that has grown in my tank in that time and is nowhere else in the tank.

MixedFruitBasket · Dec 19, 2019

My tank is roughly 5 years old now. I don't grow coraline algae and never have. If I get it in on a rock, plug, snail, it stays, but in five years I think I have one tiny dot on my glass.
Otherwise, my tank is happy and healthy.

pasquale petrovia · Dec 19, 2019

I have a 72" 14- t5 hood, my mag stays at 1375 and use reef crystals. 15 months and no coraline. I even seeded it with large pieces from a friend and rubble rock covered. No go. I am going to try the boron. Thanks Andrew

Oldsalt · Dec 19, 2019

I don't use synthetic salt mix. My water comes straight from the Indian Ocean. I get 1000 litres delivered every 10 weeks into my IBC. I change out 200 litres every fortnight (2 weeks). My tank + sump is 1500 litres. With all the rock and substrate, the total water volume is ~ 1000 litres.

Bryknicks · Dec 19, 2019

Do you have any coraline currently in the tank? If not I would suggest seeding it from another reefer or LFS. I originally bought snails with coraline on the shells and it started spreading to the rest of my tank within two weeks. As stated many times you could also try purple helix to seed the tank. I keep my tank params: Alk-9 Cal-450 Mg-1350 and the coraline grows great.

pasquale petrovia · Dec 19, 2019

I have heard some bad things about helix, like red bugs or the like hitching a ride in that stuff

Dennis Cartier · Dec 19, 2019

jwshiver said:
My tank is a 120 and is 4 years and 4 months old. This is a end view. The CA you see on the overflow is the only CA that has grown in my tank in that time and is nowhere else in the tank.

Lol, clearly your issue is that your coralline is being out competed by all that coral! You need to trim back those invasive corals and make room for the coralline to take root. Nice Space Invader by the way!;Droid

Dennis

John Rebman · Dec 19, 2019

Zeal said:
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...

Check your Strontium levels. boosting the levels may help your chorline growth.

Scott.h · Dec 20, 2019

I don’t think raising your mg levels 75 parts will change it. I think lighting plays a big part. My sps tank which is 4 years old has never had much, but has a lot of light (t5) yet my softie tank which is many years old has cheap leds and has lots of coralline. It prefers less light for sure. And it could plain be a maturity thing too. My sps tank was started bare bottom and dry rock where the rock and sand in my softie tank are probably 20 years mature. Same water and parameters both tanks.

dadnjesse · Dec 20, 2019

My new bare bottom Tank is only 3 months and the bottom is covered, my rocks are all purple, and I have to constantly scrape the sides. I don't mind the purple rocks but having to scrape the glass is a pain.