Coralline Experiment Results

[bang guy]

Last month, the 29th of Jan I believe, there was a discussion about the light requirements for Coralline Algae. I was under the belief that it grew best with low to moderate light but a few fellow hobbiests adamant about it growing best under intense MH light convinced me that I wasn't really sure.
I decided to stop scraping the coralline off and knock the Urchins off the least lit area of my tank to see how fast it would actually grow. At first I was measuring the growth rate but after two weeks that became impossible. This is the result after 25 days of growth from a clean pane of glass.

 

[tigerlover]

wow, that's alot of coraline algea!

 

[phoenixrising]

Awesome! I'm convinced!
I also use VHO lighting.....

 

[madd catt]

That looks great, let it grow along all three sides.What type of lighting or mixture of lites are you using ,combos?How long per day were they on and this was done without calcium additives?

 

[saltylakes]

Your tank is beautiful guy,
I wanted to find out what supplements you are using.
I have a 55 gallon reef with 4 96 watt PC bulbs
I use to put all Seachem products like:
Calcium
Alk
Strontium
Iodine
and Coral Vite from Kent
I am doing an experiment for a few months where I am adding no supplements and doing 10 gallon water changes every two weeks.
Does anyone only do water changes No supplements?
thanks

 

[frozenguy]

i dont understand how you would use low lighting but keep corals???
also, my algea is growing like crazy (coraline).....just after a week!!!
i bought Bionic...its a two part system that just works so well...

 

[krishj39]

im jealous of that coralline! I've long suspected that it grows better in less light, in my tank, it is growing thick behind the rocks in the back, but still just scattered dots everywhere the light hits brightly.

 

[bang guy]

To answer some of the questions.
Lighting: I use three 160 watt URI SuperActinic and three 160 watt URI AquaSuns.
Additives: Limewater and home made fish food.

 

[chinnyr]

I know from my experience of lighting.I had only 120w of no lighting and had some great growth of coraline on my live rock and a few patchy spots here and there on the glass.When I updated to 44ow vhos it took off on the glass.At one point it covered the glass like bang's.Now it is a battle to keep the front glass clean.The only weird thing is it will tend to bleach out in certain areas and then regrown over that just as fast.

 

[attml]

Bang Guy,
If you keep that up you are going to put GARF grunge out of business! I know I have seen some pictures of your tank in the past but I can't remember, are you able to keep any SPS under that much VHO?

 

[bang guy]

Originally posted by attml
Bang Guy,
If you keep that up you are going to put GARF grunge out of business! I know I have seen some pictures of your tank in the past but I can't remember, are you able to keep any SPS under that much VHO?
Only the less light demanding SPS - Monti, Hydno, Porites, Seriatopora, etc. I had one Acro that went from brown to an incredible Teal color but the growth was very very slow.

 

[nerdy]

I going to take my bulbs out!! Great work!!

 

[xxchris060]

Lime water what do you mean bye that? Do you make it? Thats all you add to the tank??

 

[sammystingray]

All the different color coralines require different lighting and water flow. My question is this.....obviously the purples are most common in our tanks it seems, and when I bought liverock covered in many colors.....only the purple stayed around for long. I do have a few shades of purple, and the darker one seems to like even less light. The certain purple variety that you seem to have there, also LOOKS to be the same color as the most common one seen, and the dominant color in my tank as well......do all of our tanks have the same coraline species, or is there different varieties very close in color? BTW that is extremely fast growth....any thoughts why aside from lighting? where did the first spots show at? How is the water flow on the pane? What are the levels of everything? Did perfect circles form and grow until they met, or did it get the "splattered" effect going?

 

[sammystingray]

Also, the back glass doesn't appear to be covered.......do you clean it off, and if not, why do you suspect the back is not 100% covered like the side? Did you clean the other side the same day, and how did it grow? what lighting on that side in comparison? I would love for anyone to throw in some other colored coraline pics in this thread as well, and perhaps we can get Bang Guys post turned into a great coraline discussion. Guy is now not only the bug king, but also the duke of coraline.

 

[sammystingray]

Yes, my LFS has 100% coverage in all the reef/coral tanks, they just keep the fronts clean. I have in on both sides and back, but it's not solid yet. My reef was switched to this brand new tank about 8 months ago, and I THOUGHT I was happy with the growth, but now that I see Bangs.....

 

[attml]

Sammy,
Here is a pic that i have posted previously that shows several different colors of coralline (pink, green, purple & maroon). You can see that several rocks on the bottom were dry base rocks when I set up the tank. Different colors of corralline started growing on them after about 1 month after setup. If you look closely though you can see that the more shaded areas still have no coralline growth and the areas receiving light have all of the coralline. I use to use Kent Tech CB (A & B) and Stront & Moly. I now use a combo of Kent Liquid Reactor, Essential Elements, Strnt & Moly and a little Iodine. My tank is under 2 x 65w 10000K daylights and 2 x 65w 7100K actenics. I am not sure why my shaded areas have no growth and why my well lit areas get all of the growth? Mabe I just don't have enough light to grow good coralline in the shade?

 

[sammystingray]

Here's a pic of some of the darker purple stuff......the color is VERY close to what it appears as in real life, but due to the monitor setting of people, and my camera, download, and upload, etc.....the color won't look exact to you guys. The point I wanted to show with this pic is that this is my coraline variety that really seems to like low light. This is obvvious since this whole section is somewhat shaded, and you can see where it is actually growing in little caves in the pic, and some is almost in darkness. Crap......file size is too big...hold on.

 

[sammystingray]

OK, here's the pic that backs up alot of what Bang says.....you can see the coraline is growing under ledges and evven some in almost total darkness. I believe some lighting is required, but not as much as many would have you know. It is algae after all.

 

[attml]

I agree with you Sammy & Bang Guy because I ahve seen a lot of other tanks where the coralline grows in the shade. For some reason I guess I am the exception. As you can see in this pic, the areas that get less light have much less coralline growth. The rocks were all put in the tank at the same time and the rock to the left and right of the mushroom were both dry base rock when I put them in the tank. You can see a little coralline growth in what is the most shaded area on the right but it is no where near as much growth as the well lighted areas. Again the only explaination I have is that those areas aren't getting enough light to grow decent coralline?