Healthy signs of calcification in the new reef aquarium.

[Unarce]

My experience with corraline is that it likes warm lighting (loves 6500k halides), isn't particularly fond of 10K PC's regardless of intensity...

Funny thing is that when I switched from my 12K MH to a 6500k MH I had to double my calcium top offs because within a week increased corralline growth was depleting it in my tank at a rate that blew my mind.

That's interesting - I've always had better coralline growth under the bluer halide lamps and fluorescent lighting as opposed to the really bright, daylight-type halides. Seems like you've had the opposite experience.

Yeah, I was about to say the same thing, Chris. Most would say the majority of purple coralline growth are in the lower-lit or shaded areas under bluer lighting. In the case of a much warmer kelvin rating, you'd expect more of the yellow and green coralline. There are so many strains, that it's certainly possible.

 

[dougc]

I had a lot more coralline algae under VHO lighting than under my current 10K MH lights. Frankly, I hate the stuff. It gets to be a nuisance to keep it cleaned off where you don't want it. Other than seeing it as an indicator of good water quality and lighting, I don't understand the attraction. In a newer tank, maybe it competes to some extent with even less desirable algaes, but in an established reef tank with filled in growth, it serves no purpose. It only grows where I don't want it, anyway. I understand that on a real coral reef, it may be responsible for much of the growth of the reef understructure, but it doesn't do that in our tanks.

Am I the only one who feels ambivalent about coralline? Sorry, gotta go. I have some more scraping to do.

 

[Garry thomas]

A high alkalinity/ph helps, calcium is just a small part of the full story, a good mg level, and regular kalk additions. And as mentioned seeding the tank with differant colours and types of corraline help, as there are loads of differant types of it. Some encrusting, some plate like, some purple some pink some green. Calcium reactors always play a good part as well, because of excess co2.