white Coralline

How do you do top offs? When I had my 55g mine would bleach if I added fresh water to fast. It always came back tho. That stuff grew like crazy under my pc's. Now that i have led's I can't grow it to save my life.

 

all you people that can grow coraline, please tell me your secret. I wish i never laid eyes on the stuff.

 

Kalkawasser and MH's
I could never get the stuff to grow under LED's but then I couldn't get SPS to look good under them either.  I just think LED's have the cool factor but not the performance factor.  MH is the closest thing you can get to natural sunlight.  But this is just IMO

 

Have you added any new equipment or changed lights or your photo period? Brighter lights could cause coralline to bleach.
I did have a similar thing happed with my 350, I had a couple perfect circles that I could see on the back wall that looked like a light layer of clear slime bacteria for a few days they got bigger and bigger and the coralline that they covered turned slightly whiter in color. Within a week later the bacteria was gone and the coralline looked normal again. I am still scratching my head as to what it was but it didn't seem to affect anything and haven't seen it since.

 

If this was a water parameter issue you would be seeing it affect more than just the one rock.
If it is some kind of bacteria it could spread from one general location like it looks as it is. Top off water should really be added at the same rate as evaporation to prevent swings in salinity and stress on the tanks inhabitants. I would just watch it and not do anything drastic at this point.

 

I used Purple up in my 75gal tank. Just after about one month setup and cycle I started to add once a week to my tank. I only do water changes once every 3 to 4 weeks and its been up sense January 24th this year. My rock had a lot of Coraline on it to when I bought it, but adding purple up started to grow it on my walls of tank and just about everything else in my tank. Even my egg crate has got it.

I have since been adding it to my 40 breeder and just started noticing some spot here and there on the bottom of tank after a only a few weeks. Again my live rock has had some on it too. I think Purple up works very well myself. Just don't go over board with it. Treat once a week and keep an eye on your Calc. I first notice the drop off on my calc after just a week or so with no water change. I don't like to change my water more then once every 3 to 4 weeks and after adding the purple up to my tank it made calc around 480 to 500. It puts some calc back in and started my Coraline off real good in the process.
Very happy with it
Kyle

 

lol sorry I ment cant grow it. I would love it if my tank was rid of all of it.

 

you do know that purple up is just calcium right?

 

Well lol You got me then man, because on the label it says it helps permote caloline algae growth. Its just calcium that seems to help my tank.I wanted to add calcium and wanted faster growth on caroline algae too so it was a no brainer for me. will just straight calcium do this too then?

 

Yes Kyle, calcium will do the same as PurpleUp/DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif  Do you always keep your alk at 6 dKh?

 

Man i did a lot of looking into this and its all over the place when using strait calcium. I am not sure i am convinced about this one yet. To many arguements i cant back up on my owen with my little experience. But i can say purple up does seem to work for me. I can say for sure there is more in purple up then just calcium that makes it permote
Caroline algae growth.
My 29gal took 8 months to get even a little growth in it and live rock had all kinds on it to start. I do know for sure that the algae must be added to tank in order for it to grow in your tank.
My alk when i checked it last was just around 6 if i remember right. I t does waver a bit sometimes but not much. I will check it tomorrow and post. I really dont test all that much any more. Once a month is about it unless i suspect something

 

I do not think the algae needs to be added to the tank for it to grow. I started with all dry rock and I have coraline all over everything. its just a natural process that takes more time for some then others.

 

Could be but if you do a search every thing i read said there needs to be spores in the water column for it to even grow in your tank. That being said water could have the spores in it. That was one common thing i read that it is not like common algea.

 

You may get that illusion that it will occur naturally Mike and it sort of does but not on its own. Like Kpotter said, it does have to be introduced into an aquarium. It is much harder to keep it out than you may think. It only takes a couple of spores transported in water from another tank. This can come with new fish or more likely on corals that you add. Not necessarily on the coral itself but the base that it is mounted too or again the water the coral is in.
The purple up that caribsea sells is nothing more than calcium, aragonite sand ground into a powder and iodine solution. They have a "patented" formula that I believe really consists no more than the rock that they put in every bottle to mix the "sludge" that settles to the bottom of the bottle, hence why you have to shake it very well before adding.  The aragonite powder that it contains is what makes the water cloudy after adding it. There are other brands Kent purple tech is one I know off hand that claim to do the same.
All coralline really needs is good water quality, lighting, calcium, good alk levels and lots of water flow. Ever wonder why the first place you see it take a hold is generally on a powerhead?
Coralline growth is also based partly on the amount of it to start with the more you have to start the faster it will reproduce.  Scraping it with a stiff brush will also spead more spores around faster.