confusing coralline

[Nihoa]

i dont really understand what coralline needs to flourish or how it behave one way in some parts of the tank and differently elsewhere. in our 33g reef, we have 40ish pounds on lr and on some pieces the coralline is doing fine while on other pieces it is frosting white and dying off. i gave some of the pieces a good brushing with a tooth brush to disperse spores and now all our hermits and snails are blooming with coralline on their shells and we have it growing on the glass but the die-off on some of the rocks continues. what gives? you would think that all of it would be doing poorly or at the very least you wouldnt have older stuff dying and new stuff spotting at the same time??

all our water parameters are normal although nitrates are a bit high (10pp). we have 50w of light (20 actinic, 30 life glo). i have been supplementing calcium with kent liquid calcium.

thoughts?

[christyf5]

another way to disperse it is to aim a powerhead at a heavily encrusted area

Personally I haven't figured out how coralline algae works, I have hardly any in my tank and haven't for a couple of years. I find it very frustrating to see taht I only have a couple small patches. I even recently bought a rock that was just covered as a little experiment to see if I just don't have the right conditions or what.

[Rbacchiega]

I'm kind of in the same boat. I know that light intensity as well as flow and overall calcium reading will determine what colour coraline will grow in. But I think I might be one of the few who don't like it all over the place. I don't mind it on the rockwork, as realistically that becomes covered with corals inthe long run (well, that's the plan anyways) But I try my damnedest to get it off everything else. I like the way a tank looks deeper front to back without coraline.

[hillegom]

If this is a new setup, could it be that the "dieing off rock" was dried out at some point before you received the LR? So after you put it into the aquarium, it was already dead?I know it bleaches out in the sun without water.
Hopefully it will grow back after a month.

[Nihoa]

Originally Posted by hillegom

If this is a new setup, could it be that the "dieing off rock" was dried out at some point before you received the LR? So after you put it into the aquarium, it was already dead?I know it bleaches out in the sun without water.
Hopefully it will grow back after a month.

nah, it came out of the tank up at the shop and went right into a bucket i had brought with me (bucket topped off with their water). took it home, acclimated it to our water over a couple days and threw it in the tank.

its almost as though one week its taking right off and then the next its dying back on some rocks. some patches recover, others go bare. weird.

[hillegom]

There are a few live "things" that ear coraline algae, like urchins and limpets. Probablly others as well