Promoting Coralline

[tangale]

I just bought 50lbs of live rock and want to make it very pretty.
Is there something I can buy to promote coralline growth? Thanks.

 

[Deanos]

Purple Up

Coralline Accelator

Or, you can scrape coralline off of live rock into the tank to release algae spores. They will eventually populate the tank if your water parameters are in the normal seawater range.

Dean

 

[MightyMike]

Dean have you used those personally? Any experiences to share with myself as a newbie?
thanks
MMike

 

[Deanos]

No, I've not used any coralline "boosters".

But, I've scraped coralline off of the glass which performs the same purpose. Just as important as "seeding" the tank with coralline spores is maintaining proper calcium and alkalinity levels. Light levels also play a role....different colors of coralline prefer different levels of light intensity.

Dean

 

[jhale]

for some reason coralline won't grow on my rocks it grows all over my glass and on my cutting board bottom, why won't it grow on my rocks?

 

[Deanos]

My experience is the same Jonathan. Maybe it prefers smooth surfaces first, like powerheads and glass. Even Tonga rock before Fiji, etc.

 

[ShaunW]

What's you Ca and Alk at? Your observing the difference in surface area attachment for the algae. It has an easier time with glass and starboard, PVC and plastic also. But it will eventually be everywhere with time.

 

[John]

I have the exact opposite, give me a rock and within a few weeks the coraline will take it over, but as for on my glass. I have almost none. Maybe its the salt's we use as well as the CA and ALK levels. I keep my ALK at a constant 10.0 dkh as for CA i never have to dose due to me using oceanic salt. I am always in the 480-490 range which is high but thats straight out of the bucket. I think im gonna switch over to IO though In my nano when I had it I did see more calcium on the glass with dosing and using IO rather than using oceanic and not dosing. By the way I use B-Ionic to dose my ALK and CA

 

[John]

did see more coraline not calcium sorry ;x