Live Rock

[fla. keys]

Can "dead live rock" come back to life?????
I posted earlier about coraline algea and how to get my rock to get nice and purple. My rock has been in the tank for about 6 monts and no signs of purple, not even on the glass of my tank.
The rock does seem to have a thin coating of a brownish algea and some thin fuzz.
I really want to start getting some purple coraline growth in my tank.
Also how do I measure the calcium levels? I am adding the liquid calcium each day but have no idea what the calcium is reading or should read?
Thank you all for any advice.

 

[rhomer]

I don't know the answer to your question but I just had to shout out War Eagle. I'm an AU alumn and living it Atlanta.

 

[fshhub]

get a salt water calcium test kit, make sure it is for sw, fw testers do not work for sw calcium
as for the coraline and lr, did you add any lr to your dead rock??, this wil help, but it will take time, if not, get a couple of lbs. of lr

 

[ky]

Growing coraline algae takes time and patients. You have to make sure that your Ca and KA levels are appropriate. It can take months (10-12) for a tank to have lots of coraline algae, but yu have to keep your Ca levels up.

 

[coraltrapper5020]

don't use liquid calcum to get your calcium up in your tank. its just a supllmint for corals. use a Kalkwasser mix or a mixture to drip calcium in to your tank. I have 2olbs of dead rock and 2olbs of live rock in my 29 gallon tank. Coraline aglea every were in one months time using kalkwasser and coral vite by mark wisse. And lots of power heads, I used 4 plus my XP2.
Good luck

 

[kimf]

We have good coraline growth using Kalkwasser drip. We also test every Thursday, and collect the water at the same time each Thursday.
I think my husband came up with a good drip method. First took a 5 gallon bucket and drill a hole 2" on the side from the bottom. Glued a regular outdoor faucet (like you would get at Lowes) on the outside. On the inside put a pvc elbow going up. Theory: Kalkwasser water needs to come from the middle, not the film on top or the debris that settles to the bottom. To the fauct we hooked a regular garden hose cut to 24".
Now for the drip bag. Walmart sells "Camping Showers" Heavy duty vinly bag with whole in top to put water (Kalkwasser in our case) and hose coming from bottom(used to shower with but we cut it off and glued iv tubing) You can get sterile IV tubing from your local veterinarian(no needles attached).
IV tubing has a flow control which we use to control the amount of drip into the sump. We have a closet close by sooo....Indside the closet is a shelf the 5 gallon mix bucket sits on, the hose runs into the "Shower bag" with the iv tubing running under the door and into the sump.
Really works very nicely.

 

[jakob4001]

hey kimf, would love to see your tank sometime; would you happen to have a webpage for it? is the flame scallop still alive? WOW, that's a lotta k 5 gallons; hmmm, I thought you could only mix that stuff for about a week's usage

 

[vkesu]

We've been pumping from a 5 gallon forever. It works great! Saves having to fill the kalk everyday! My kalk stays at 440.

 

[kimf]

Looking into a digital camaera to take pictures just to post here.