coralline alge

[dmm180]

I suddenly have a boom of it all over the rock and all over the tank.
Can someone please explain why this is so wonderful?
Can I now attempt to grow coral? I have tried before but the coral did not survive.
The tank is just shy of one year old....
Thanks.:cheer:

 

[civickid]

what size tank and what kind of lights do u have

 

[dmm180]

55 gallon, triton 15 watts (2)

 

[aarone]

you cannot keep coral because you have 30 watts of light in a 55 gallon tank. Maybe if you upgraded to PC at least....then you could have some low light corals.
aaron

 

[harlequinnut]

Are you sure it's coraline algae and not something else like red slime algae?:notsure:

 

[dmm180]

No, I believe I am right because it is identical to the stuff on the LR that the guy at the LFS said was corallline ...
Back to my origional question...what is so great about this alge?

 

[jab47303]

I am by no means an expert, but I got fascinated with coralline at one time and did a little reading, and here's what I found:
Coralline stores calcium in the carbonate form. So I imagine this means it will help with PH buffering.
Coralline helps to prevent the growth of other nuisance algae. Not especially because it competes more successfully, but because it is constantly shedding dead and otherwise useless cells. This shedding causes any algae covering (on the coralline) to also be shed. Sort of nature's non-stick coating.
It helps to prevent fouling of the intakes of grazers - such as snails etc. So should help to keep them healthy. Not sure if this is true for 'pickers' like crabs or fish that 'graze'.
In the wild, it adds strength to reefs. This is probably not applicable to aquariums too much, but every little bit helps - right?
I'm sure there are other pluses to having good coralline growth, but this is pretty much the extent of what I know. And besides - it just plain looks good.