Coraline Not Growing...

[CMG]

I have had my tank going not since January 21, but have have the LR and sand going since August.

The only coraline algae I have in my tank is on two pieces of rock that came with it from the LFS when I bought a mushrooms rock and a GSP rock. The mushroom rock even looks like the coraline may be receeding? The LR that I bought didnt have any coraline on it when I got it so that sucked. I see on other peoples chronicles that they have coraline all over within very few months, I am not sure why I am not getting any???

I have a 40g tank which had PC lighting until a few weeks ago when I got a Tek T5. My latest parameters are
Amonia: 0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate: 0
PH: 8.3
Alk: 5.5 Perhaps this is for concern since its high and everything online talks about how to raise your alk and not lower it.
Calcium: 420-440
Phosphate: Cant really read the test that well. Its an API so I have to use the color tab thingy and its either the first or second one.
Salinity: 1.026
Oh and I do use ro/di water, my TDS meter says that the reading is 0-3 depending on which day I test. I feed once a day and sometimes once every other day, mysis usually and formula one sometimes but I always target feed the plate coral and bubble coral. I even pretty much target feed the two fish. They eat it all and then the CBS gets some too if he comes out from his cave.
I do have some hair algae and some redish-brown algae that is on the sand...hhmmm I guess thats about it. Perhaps the other algaes are eating all the nutrients in the water so the coraline cant get any?

 

[lcstorc]

Try scraping a bit off of the rocks that have it. That will spread the spores so it can grow other places.
You will soon learn to hate the stuff.

 

[CMG]

Ok, I will try that. Hate it more than hair algae and slim algae? I dont think so! :makefun:

 

[cracker]

Ok, I will try that. Hate it more than hair algae and slim algae? I dont think so! :makefun:

Too funny! I can't wait till I learn to hate too much coraline! LOL

 

[Chris3859]

Here....you can have all of mine. That crap grows all over my glass. I have to scrape it off every few days. It looks pretty on the rocks and overflows though. I just went from a 55 to a 75 like 5 weeks ago and it is trying to grow everywhere. How is your calcium, magnesium. High phosphates will inhibit its growth as well.

 

[CMG]

Its wierd because I am not sure if my tank is healthy or not. The reason I say this is that my tests listed above are all pretty decent right? But my plate coral hasnt puffed up in about a week and I have no coraline growth, however along with my tests being ok my bubble coral is fine and my new GSP (that is infested with dozens of mini bristle stars) seems to be doing good too. So its just confusing to me I guess.

 

[cracker]

Chris is right. For those of us who are coraline challenged need to check basic water parameters. I'm not getting all this coraline growth either but as Chris says. My calcium levels are low. I'm trying a different salt mix instead of trying additives. No way around it ,eventually quality test kits are a must have .

 

[CMG]

I dont have a magnesium test kit. And I have a feeling the phosphate thing you mentioned Chris may be the issue. I should start using some of the phosphate material I have in my sump until I am finished building my phos reacter. But I also read that GSP doesnt like something that is in the phosphate pads...

 

[lcstorc]

Cracker,
When you come down to get your corals, I can give you lots of corraline. We can scrape it from walls or rocks or I can give you some rocks covered in the stuff. It is everywhere.

 

[Fish Crazy]

I used Purple Up to get it to grow in my tank and it excellerated it very quickly

 

[lcstorc]

Purple Up can mess up your parameters big time.
If you want to add something add calc.

 

[CMG]

Can you add too much calcium? I assume so because alk is reliant on ca so it would be messing up the alk.

 

[djbacon]

The more you scrape the more it will grow - helps if some of your live rock had it to begin with. And teeeeny bit f purple up goes a LLLOOONG way

 

[cracker]

That's what I understand. Untill I'm ready to step up & start testing like I should. I'm going to step up my water changes.

 

[surplusrifleguy]

Can you add too much calcium? I assume so because alk is reliant on ca so it would be messing up the alk.

When my tank started I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get any coraline to grow. I now know why and in less than 3 weeks my coraline (and my corals)have gone crazy. My hair, green and red algaes haved stoped growing and I can see white on the rock again. My couple of snails easily maintain the rock now and my front glass no longer has a daily growth of green on it (I have to clean it every 3 days now). Here's where I was going wrong. I went to buy a piece of xenia from a guy advertising nearby. He had the most beautiful 40 gallon tank, t-5 lighting, tons of coraline, many corals that have grown to huge sizes. I asked him how he maintains his tank and what he adds as supplements. To my surprise he only said two things. He changes 5 gallons of water a week and only adds a small amount of Kent's Essential Elements twice a week. I was wondering, how can this be? I add calcium, mag and everything else daily, just like the bottles say. My calcium level will never go above 440 even with daily additives. I told him what I do, and about my algae problems, and he simply told me LESS IS MORE. He explained by adding to many additives into the water I'm creating a food source for the bad algae which out competes coraline and other corals. He also said the 5 fresh gallons of water he's changing has all the proper levels in it, and if my corals need more by the middle of the week, add just a tiny bit of what is low. So I decided to try his method. It worked great. Within a couple days I noticed the first real coraline growth on my powerhead, and now all over the higher water flow areas and on back glass. My green star polyps have grown at least 3/4" in all directions and my bad algae growth has almost completely stopped. And the BIGGEST surprise was, my calcium, alk and all other levels really don't change from week to week. Calcuium stays at a constant 400 all the time. My AlK stays at 9KH most of the time as well. Maybe if I add more stony corals it might change, but for now my tank is going crazy in a good way. I do have to say, however, it's hard not to add all the chemicals in. I feel like they are magic. But I've found they were just causing me trouble. The only other thing I do is watch my phosphates, which is never a problem. All this time my thinking was leaning towards adding in all these pham grade chemicals makes my tank better. I wish I learned this before I spent hundreds of dollars on them. One last thought, as soon as I stopped adding extra supplements in the water and I did water a water change, the tank transformation happened very quickly. Hope my experience helps.

 

[cheeks69]

he simply told me LESS IS MORE. He explained by adding to many additives into the water I'm creating a food source for the bad algae which out competes coraline and other corals.

Very wise hobbiest !

my calcium, alk and all other levels really don't change from week to week. Calcuium stays at a constant 400 all the time. My AlK stays at 9KH most of the time as well.

The key is to maintain these levels stable and in time you'll be cursing the coralline explosion...

 

[CMG]

Unfortunately I am already doing 5g weekly water changes and I have never added anything to my tank besides salt to the water. Although I do have a bottle of kents calcium I have never put any in. Thats why this whole coraline thing is so confusing to me. When I get home I am going to do some scraping and see what happens over the next few weeks. Also might try to lower phosphates by finishing my reactor this weekend.

 

[surplusrifleguy]

If you are not adding things to the water I would just be sure your phosphates are as close to zero as possible. If you have hair algae thats a sign of either to many additives, a high phosphate level or as some of my books say a low ALK. Your Alk is 5.5, that would be very low on my test kits. Are you using the same measurement table I am. Mine test kit says 7 DKH is minimum and 12 DKH is max. And I think coraline and a stable reef needs at 7-8DKH. Maybe someone will correct me but mine is doing great with 9-10dkh.

 

[cheeks69]

surplusrifleguy has a point if it's 5.5 dKH then that is very low, it should be between 7-11 dKH. If it's meq/L then it is high, it should be between 2.5-4 meq/L. The key here is get these levels stable to where they should be and keep them there, if there's any fluctuations then it'll be difficult to get the coralline algae to grow.

Which test kit are you using ?

 

[CMG]

I am using seachem test kits for the alk and they read in meq/L so it is high. Like is said before, all the research I have done on alk only shows how to raise it not lower it, so I am confused on how to do that. I think I may hace a phosphate problem since I have hair algae and the phosphate test is hard to understand so I dont even know what it is. I will have to get a different brand next time.

I use API test kits for amonia, phosphate, and calcium. Then I use seachem test kits for nitrite, nitrate, ph, and alk.

I put some phosphate filter pad in my sump just now and also scrapped some red and purple coraline off one of my rocks into the water column and onto some other rocks. We will see what happens.