Purple rock rocks! Do you have coralline algae in your tank right now?

[FlyinAg]

Used to be no problem I feel 'back in the day' of starting with all live rock. I've struggled to get meaningful purple/red growth starting with dry rock until over a year in, even after the bottled stuff. All For Reef seemed to increase growth. There was some green stuff that seemed calciforous but not as thick or smooth as the purple stuff that grew in. My dry rock overall is pretty ugly and I'll never do it again except for base rock/rubble.

 

[Katrina71]

Horrible I'm my tank, almost non existent in my son's.

 

[kevgib67]

Mostly on the back wall and everything that is plastic in my tank.

 

[Dburr1014]

Coraline grows everywhere and it's such a pita. I have to clean the front pane all the time.

My tank was being over run with it and then… once I went bacteria driven like Sunny x it’s starting to die off on all surfaces and he always mentions he can’t grow corraline at all and never has in any of his tanks.. I’m not sure the correlation here but the only thing I can think of is the corals out compete the corraline for elements that’s why they grow faster with gut loaded bacteria. And the corraline fades away.

Seriously? I will have to try this.
I have read his thread, what are you doing?

 

[Noodles_Jefferson]

Purple rock rocks! Do you have coralline algae in your tank right now?

Some people love coralline algae, and some people hate it. It can be both the sign of a healthy tank and an unsightly nuisance that can be a challenge to clean especially if it is allowed to build up. However, let’s step beyond the pros and cons of coralline or your personal opinion of this type of algae and focus on a simple question – do you have coralline algae in your tank right now? We’d love to see pictures of your coralline algae so feel free to share with the R2R community in the related thread!

Photo by @Nerdist Aquarist


This QOTD is sponsored by: www.topshelfaquatics.com

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This is mine. Seems like manageable compared to some of these pictures.

 

[robanister]

RED!!! RED!!! RED!!! I have some purple coralline algae but the overall majority is Red! Not complaining, I just don’t see it often/ever?

 

[Gino]

I never had any grow thought out the years with different tank size and bio along the way. To be honest... I don't like the look of it, plus is a headache if get out of control.

 

[Troylee]

Coraline grows everywhere and it's such a pita. I have to clean the front pane all the time.
Seriously? I will have to try this.
I have read his thread, what are you doing?

It’s really weird! It almost looks like something is eating it haha! It’s just flaking off rocks and leaving white circles. I carbon dose and use zeobak and mb7

 

[leepink23]

Tank is about 10 months now, acros since 5-6 months, coralline around 4 months. Started from all dry rock, corralline came from bottle originally and added from snails additionally. Pictures are with and without blue filter and also veggie clip

 

[KenBabich]

I'd really like it to colonize the black acrylic back walls of my AIOs, but it seems to avoid the acrylic for some reason. Can't get star polyps up there either.

Try purchasing a purple Reef Rax magnetic nano rock. Glue GPS onto it and it will spread onto the acrylic wall. I’ve tried icy gel glue, and that method for me has about 25% success rate. What’s really nice about using the rock is it adds three dimension and texture as opposed to flat appearance. See photos. I ordered the refracts on bulk resupply. I used the double frag rock as it’s bigger and allows a bulbus protrusion as opposed to a shelf like protrusion of the single plug. Either would do fine most likely.

 

[Vette67]

Coralline algae? Never heard of it.

I purposely don’t clean 3 sides of my glass so that I can keep my 2 rock urchins fed. They eat lots of coralline.

 

[~MD~Reefs~]

RED!!! RED!!! RED!!! I have some purple coralline algae but the overall majority is Red! Not complaining, I just don’t see it often/ever?

Try purchasing a purple Reef Rax magnetic nano rock. Glue GPS onto it and it will spread onto the acrylic wall. I’ve tried icy gel glue, and that method for me has about 25% success rate. What’s really nice about using the rock is it adds three dimension and texture as opposed to flat appearance. See photos. I ordered the refracts on bulk resupply. I used the double frag rock as it’s bigger and allows a bulbus protrusion as opposed to a shelf like protrusion of the single plug. Either would do fine most likely.

How thick is your glass? I want to do this but my glass is 1/2 so I’m not sure if that magnetic rock would stick. How long did it get for the GSP to grow to that point for you?

 

[fluked]

How thick is your glass? I want to do this but my glass is 1/2 so I’m not sure if that magnetic rock would stick. How long did it get for the GSP to grow to that point for you?

My gsp on my second tank took about a month to grow and fully cover my frag rack, but then for whatever reason it took about a year before it actually grew up onto the glass, then it started spreading at an okay pace

 

[padilla95624]

I can't keep it off the glass in my clown tank but it will not grow in my SPS tank

 

[Gobi1canobi]

Yup I never seen it grow in 7-10 days. Thank you buy the way! Anuther thing he replied is… “ there’s no way detritus could b in my specimen because he grows it on glossy tile and scraped it into the jar! “ “ Makes no sense seeing that what was in my jar was tiny bits of branching coralline! No flakes or color in the water. I think he pulls it out the ocean . He livesin the Floridas keys! But he sold 30,000 of thoes he said! Lol I told him he should b ashamed to tell people that! Not bragging! Thanks for the feedback!

Oh and one more point his instructions say 7-10 days and you will see growth its been 3 weeks, nada.

I know it!

 

[thrillreefer]

A reef tank without coralline is like a forest without moss: not seasoned yet! I let it take over the back and non-viewing side of my tank, love the look personally. Sure it takes some diligence to keep it off the front, but it outcompetes much uglier and more annoying algaes. Moar! Wish I could get more red to grow though, mostly purple with some pink here.

 

[KenBabich]

How thick is your glass? I want to do this but my glass is 1/2 so I’m not sure if that magnetic rock would stick. How long did it get for the GSP to grow to that point for you?

The magnets are very strong. My glass is 10 mm. Check Reef Rax website as they provides the specs. The speed of growth is a year. Starts off fast then maybe as it reached to the top ot slowed and began more horizontal spreading.

 

[Borat]

Oh and one more point his instructions say 7-10 days and you will see growth its been 3 weeks, nada.

I can give you some of my hair algae, if that helps!

 

[DJC]

Love the coraline in my tank has been active for 8 months and I have a massive flourish of purple coraline also have a red/deep red coraline and also have a black starting and in very scattered spots I have a yellowy/green coraline happening

So multi functional colours but the purple is out competing all colours so far

Have a black backing so I keep the glass clean but I keep the black back and water column collecting it as I want that to overthrow the back scape of the tank

 

[mfinn]

I have a small amount of coralline algae in my tanks, but not like when I used mh lighting. Maybe it's the bluer spectrum I use now. I'm just not sure. I do like it and don't mind scraping it off the front glass panel.
Something interesting I found last week while doing long overdue work on my 240. In my external overflow, it was jamb packed with a type of branching coralline. It surprised me there was so much.