white coralline...

[EB847]

i asked before and get a different answer from everyone. my lfs gets in uncured lr... sits in a big tank under normal shop lighting, a wimpy skimmer, and powerheads. sits there for several days and lr looks great with a buttload of different color coralline, and no smell at all. i get some home, place in my tank, and within 36 hrs, it has all turned white.

what is your opinion: alive or dead?

could the lighting change be a factor? if it's dead, does it come back to life regaining it's color, or does new coralline grow on top of it?

 

[Anonymous]

Sometimes new live rock gets a coating of white bacteria that last for a few hours to a few days.

I'd wait it out.

Louey

 

[das75]

How much light in the tank, if lots could be shock.

I had drained down my old tank once to remove a fish then some maintenance and had some bleaching of the coralline. The colour can back but seemed more from new growth than regrowth.

 

[fyrefysh]

A very bright tank will bleach purple corallin; BUT, there are so many species of coralline, you are bound to grow another species.

 

[EB847]

this coralline was red and orange

 

[fyrefysh]

Doesn't matter what color it was (purple was an example), the corallin that was on your rock was grown under lower light (no matter what the color). It will be replaced with a higher-light loving corallin. Also, your bulbs are probably a different color spectrum than the previous tank, this can also cause changes. :wink:

 

[FragMaster]

Combination of things could be going on here I think.
Louey is 100 % correct about the protective bacterial coating but just incase............

Bright lighting : I sugest you cut your lighting cycle way down if you have no corals in the tank at the moment. Acclimate the rock to the new light or it will bleach out the rock as stated already.
I have intense lighting on my 29g with more deep purple coraline than I know what to do with LOL!! Just acclimate it to the brighter lighting like you would a new coral and it should help what makes it through what evers happening right now stay alive.

Water quality: New rock, especialy uncured rock WILL need to go through another cycle in your system. Its just a fact of life when you start up a new tank When this happends if you do not keep up on water changes when spikes get out of hand, your going to suffer some large losses in coraline and critter life in and on the rock.
Even though the rock has no smell in there system when you remove it to take home You are going to have die off ( unless you can keep the rock submerged). How much die off depends on how long of a drive home.

How you prepare your rock: Did you scrubb your new rock?
Flush it under freshwater to try and scare out nasty hitch hikers?
When you do this (if you do it too long under fresh water, or scrub to much ) you will kill off most of the coraline on the rock and most of the bacteria in and on the rock. The coraline will turn white or tan and you may even turn the rock grey for a while.