live rock changing colors?

[greeds]

hey guys,
im trying to figure out whats happening to my live rock....i bought it at my lfs and it was a brown color with flaky "skin" all over it. i put it in my tank and the flaky skin came off it and it turned white, then it began turning purple and green (within a couple of days). is this normal? sometimes the purples turn to reds and then back to purples again. sometimes parts of it turn back to white and then back to colors again (over a couple of days) am i killing my live rock and paying lots of money for nothing? help! also, what does "curing" live rock mean?

 

[coachklm]

what you have sounds like die off- which causes ammonia spikes and can kill fish...
this is why we cure live rock(place it in separate container with heater powerhead and swater..do water changes until water perameters shows no spikes..ussually 6-8 weeks)
this also can reveal hidden hitchickers wich may be bad for you main tank.
changing colors seems to be ...i have no idea i would think coraline but it doesnt develope that fast and die off that fast unless you perameters are really wacky.

 

[greeds]

cool...thanks for the info...im gonna start curing LR from now on. sorry i screwed up on the times given for color change-it doesnt happen over a couple of days -more like a few days-i guess the cycle of die off to color coming out is about a week long process-and the color changing does take a few days to happen. maybe it is coraline. what im wondering though is why does it look all brown and covered with "skin" in the LFS tank but once it comes to my tank, the skin dies off and it looks more like a rock with different colors? do i want that skin to come back? is that good? or do i want it to look like a rock with different colors? my tank does get quite a bit of sunlight--i have 2 starfish, and 8 snails to help try and keep up witht the brown algae that grows on my glass-but they can hardly do it. what exactly is coraline anyhow? thanks again for the info!
greg

 

[wax32]

The "skin" on the rocks at the LFS is dead stuff, so no, you don't want it to come back.

 

[greeds]

no kidding...well thanks for solving that for me...its amazing how much there is to learn in this hobby...
greg