corraline algae question

[crazybizzle]

I was wondering my tanks been running now for 8 months i started it off with 30 pounds of completly covered corraline rock and about 50 pounds of base, but it hasnt really spread to othr rocks.  I have friends who started off with the same and all their rock is know completly covered any ideas why or how to make it spread better

 

[Krazykarl]

take that beautiful purple rock that is buried in your sand by itself out, scrape it with a razor blad or knife above your dt tank with the overflow off for an hour but powerheads on. Do it till you scrape off alot of that colour. You need to make the spores present in the water column before it will start to spread. I've told u this. Do it every day for a week and dose your tank with Kent marine liquid calcium. Once it starts it will take off!!!! DO IT!!!!!! Lol.... You've seen my tank, I don't have a piece of rock not covered!!!!

 

[crazybizzle]

Hows ur red slime doing lol ur supposed to be working right know, get in ur area.

 

[shayneh]

LOL Nice! If your not getting coralline I would say your water params are off or your lighting isn't sufficient enough. Coralline should be the easiest thing to grow in your tank so my guess is it's your water params. If your Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate and Phosphates are in check and your doing regular water changes I would say if your using IO salt you might want to check calcium and magnesium since IO is notorious for cheaping out. I had a bucket of IO that I bought for $40 on sale and over the course of the bucket I spent $60 on calcium additives alone.

 

[crazybizzle]

Ya all my paramaters are good all corals and clams are growing and buiding new skeletons at good rates was thinking my lighting is to strong maybe? 6x54 t5 tank depth of 24 inch 4 inch off tank and i do daily dosing of cal. Not sure why its not spreading

 

[xxmurrxx]

What do you use to test your calcium?
I have the API test kit and I had someone test my water at a lab he works at it shows calcium being 100 points lower than my at home reading.  This happened on two different occasions with the same results.
Not sure if I got a bunk calcium test kit or what..

 

[crazybizzle]

I do use the api last time i checked i was at 540 i think thats the right reading for cal anyway gotta be good or my acans wouldnt be growing their new hard skeltons for heads and clams growing an eight of an inch a month. Could be wrong thou??

 

[iantower]

Ca is good, some will say thats high but its ok not to high... nothing bad will come of that. Check your alk to make sure your in balance. Do that scraping technique that was mentioned, it should help. Use that purple up stuff. Your lights are good buddy. remember coraline loves actinic lighting to keeping it on for 24/7 instead of your moonlights will help you out. For the first 6months I ran my actinics at 30W all the time and it helped I find.
But like everything else in this hobby your a completely different ecosystem then I am so what works for me may not work for you!
But you can try anyways lol.
cheers!

 

[Krazykarl]

Stay away from purple up, it will cause an imbalance in ph! Then ur screwed. Lower your ca... Should be between 400-450... More to 450... If your ca is that high your alk is prob low!!! I'd test it... But begin with scraping! I did that and bam!!! U see my tank! DO IT!!!

 

[crazybizzle]

Oops im actually at 450 wrote it wrong but i will try scraping it i just figure i shouldnt have to do that for it to spread

 

[Krazykarl]

In a perfect healthy tank no u won't have yo buy you need to introduce the spores into the water column in order to spread. I'm not a pro at this salt water stuff but I know it worked for me....

 

[shayneh]

What about Magnesium and Nitrates/Phosphates???