Anyone else have the "problem" of not getting any coralline algae growth?

[marie]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

...
Nutrient wise, I have really no other algae to speak of, other than some small patches of wafer algae. I don't think it's a nutrient issue.
...

It's possible the coralline algae is using the nutrients and thats why you have no other algae.

Something everyone forgets is that everything including sps corals need nutrients of some kind in the water column to grow, if one organism is using it all up before others can grab it then the others growth suffers.
I happen to have a ton of coralline, fantastic coral growth, cyano out my ears and a healthy ball of cheato in my sump. I also have very fat fish who get fed too often .

Originally Posted by christyf5

Coralline definitely does better in lower lighted areas, I find it used to grow best under my eurobracing and under various powerheads and such. Don't talk to Marie about that though

I do find different colours of coralline like different levels of light. The pinks and lavenders like higher light and the reds and purples like it better underneath. The branching kind doesn't seem to care and the plating stuff is definitely low light

[Aquattro]

Marie, what I meant is that I dont think the lack of coraline is due to lack of nutrients, but rather I don't think it's presence means high nutrients.

[marie]

And I guess what I'm trying to say is... What are you crazy? why on earth would anyone want coralline algae. It sucks up all your calcium and then you have to buy shares in a vinegar company to get it off all your equipment

I have it growing inside my skimmer, it clogs up the airline that I use to gravity feed my calcium reactor and I even have it growing inside my wavebox

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by marie

I have it growing inside my skimmer,

I have it in my skimmer too, and the skimmer is in a separate sump room with a 50w bulb in the ceiling!!

[Skimmerking]

Be careful on what you wish for. I know on my 170 gal i had in the wall where the 150 is now. I had huge Coraline growing it was peeling off and I was going thur CAL and ALK like crazy...... SO theis time around im scraping it off because it will suck the life out of CAL and ALK..

[StirCrazy]

Andrew what are you using for lights again and what colors, and how long are they on for?

I had a zero nurtrean tank in my 90, My Mg was the same as yours, I feel your Ca is way high. I found much over 400 and you actualy get a slow down in growth in SPS. I used to try maintain mine at 380 to 400. I also had my alk a little higher than yours, 12 if I recall right.

I had SPS growth and color that poped, with nice deep colors. I was running Pure actinic 12 hours a day and My 10K MH for 8 hours a day, and I had to clean coraline off the glass every other day and it would plug my tunze in about 2 weeks to the point if the power went off they wouldn't restart.

personaly I think it was the extended actinic period that did it, in combanation with a elevated alk and a natural level Ca.

Steve

[Canadian]

Hi Steve,

Right now I'm running 4 x 24W Tek light while I wait for my ATI 6 x 24W Sunpower to come in. Today I actually swapped one of my AquaScience Duo lamps for a UVL Actinic (420nm) just to see if bluer coloration makes a difference. Prior to swapping lamps today I was running 2 X Giesemann Actinic+ (mostly 450nm - a "blue" lamp) and 2 x AquaScience Duo (around 15,000K - a "daylight" and "actinic" combination). This combination was fairly white with a hint of blue and now with the swapped out AquaScience Duo for a UVL Actinic it's much closer to 20,000K looking.

As far as calcium goes I struggle with keeping it down while maintaining my Alk higher despite using Reef Crystals salt which I bought because I heard it had high Alk and and low Ca - but so far it's tested quite high in Ca. I think I will shut my doser down over the next 24 hours to see how much my Ca drops and then re-adjust my Ca dosing to keep my Ca around 425 and Alk around 10dKh. Then I'll just dose to keep Ca around 425 and Alk around 10dKH without worrying about equally dosing the 2-part.

[Canadian]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm still leaning toward the lack of coralline in my case being the result of high nutrients that aren't being picked up on testing. As I mentioned earlier, when I blast my rock I stir up the detritus and it gets caught in some of the hair algae on the LR which I think is what feeds it, but there could be some unmeasured nutrients in the tank that are also contributing to it. I also think this is why briefly adding sand lead to a brief explosion of coralline - the sand acted as a nutrient sink while it was in there briefly.

My Ca is quite high as well Brad (often testing at 500+) and I do notice I get more encrusting than vertical growth. I might try to change my dosing on my dosing pumps to see if I can bring it down a bit and see if it has any effect.