coraline tips?

[saltank]

I look at a lot of pictures of reef tanks, and I see a lot of different shades or coraline (am I spelling that right?) - anyhow the shades I like best are the dark pink/purplish colors

I have that shade in my tank, on the rocks and on the prefilter box of my remora skimmer - HOWEVER the back glass, which is about 80% covered is a very dull shade, some areas almost white where the coraline apparently died/receded but I can't seem to get the nice color on the back glass


One common thread I can see is that the better colors are produced where the most water flow is and the lower light areas(such as undersides of my rock); is this just coincidence? I would really like to get the back glass the nice pink and purple color

I maintain alk at about 3.3 to 3.5 and calcium about 380-400. I sometimes buffer in between kalk batches using turbo calcium and seachem buffer for alk.

What are your guys' thoughts/tips or tricks for nice color coraline? Sorry about he long post :wink:

 

[Len]

It has more an issue of lighting. The more solid colored, colorful variety grows best in dim light. There are some nice light pink ones that grow well in bright light. You might want to try seeding your tank with those.

 

[saltank]

thanks for the response, after doing some more research I think it has to do with lighting - I recently replaced the bulbs in one of my pc fixtures and actually went with a different brand bulb

and the pc fixture closer to the back of the tank has a brighter (daylight) bulb, the fixture closer to the front of the tank has 50/50 bulbs

I'll bet if the fixtures were reversed I'd have different color coralline on the back glass

thanks again