Need Coralline Fast

[tmoney]

Hey Guys,
I am curing live rock for the LFS I work at and I can't seem to get any coralline on it. Yes it's only been in there for a month or two but still I need to hurry this process up! :joy:
They are in a 20 gallon tank all stacked in there under 48Watts of T-5 lights. Is there any chemical that would increase coralline growth? :help:

 

[murph145]

some of the rock already needs to have some on it for it to spread .... just make sure your calcium is where its supposed to be and normal water changes should keep calcium up or u can add a calcium additive i use B-Ionic 2 part solution
coralline takes a while sometimes so be patient

 

[infalable]

Why the rush?

 

[tmoney]

This is for my LFS I work at and we need some pretty fast because we don't have nearly enough LR in our tanks. They are relying on me to cure them and bring them back to the store ASAP.

 

[viper_930]

Not sure what kind of time you have, but it will probably take more than another month. Keep up the calcium and alkalinity.

 

[tmoney]

Alright, we can probably wait another month. Another thing- Just had to return the 42-Watt T-5's to my friend and now I use a regular flourescent twin-tube strip light over the 20 gallon.
36" Twin-Tube Strip light 60W total going over the 20 gallon tank. Not much at all I know, is this sufficient for the growth of coralline?

 

[viper_930]

Nope

 

[tmoney]

What do I have to go with then?

 

[milomlo]

Originally Posted by ViPeR_930
Nope
I know a different person here but let me ask you this. I bought rock with alot of Coraline on it. I have 130watts of PC lighting 65 12000K and 65 blue actinic 03
Will this be enough for my algae or will it go away?

 

[chipmaker]

Other than color for the most part coraline can stil be absent from rock and it can still be alive. Coraline is just one of those things thats gonna happen when it happens and about all you can do is ensure all parameters needed for its growth are there.......

 

[wax32]

Yeah, there's no rush, it just looks nice. I'm guessing they want the tanks in the store to look purple. Like the store has been there a while.

 

[dragonboy]

Kind of hard to get it going if you don't have much to start with maybe you can find someone with coralline to spread it to your tank. Or you can get one piece with alot of coralline on it and put it in the 20 gal tank to let it spread. You don't need specific type of light to grow coralline I use only a 48 watt on this 15 gal tank and it starting to spread already.

 

[harial]

try purple-up

 

[75bownut]

Originally Posted by Harial
try purple-up
I agree purple up works very well, also if you can get a piece of rock with some on it then take a sharp knife and scrape it off into your tank it will help seed it. after awhile youll have a problem keeping the glass clear with all the stuff.

 

[viper_930]

Originally Posted by milomlo
I know a different person here but let me ask you this. I bought rock with alot of Coraline on it. I have 130watts of PC lighting 65 12000K and 65 blue actinic 03
Will this be enough for my algae or will it go away?

That'll be enough to grow with.
Tmoney, it'll be pretty darn hard to grow any coraline at all with normal outputs in a month. Why not just bring the LR back to the shop (since it's already cured) and let the coraline grow in their tank? I'd assume they have better lights than normal outputs.

 

[escape2thewater]

You can also increase the alk of the tank water assuming there is nothing else in the tank that would suffer from it. I have found in my tanks that if I increase the alk to around 12dkh the coraline seems to take off. Also it seems to grow faster & thicker in the shadows of my MH lights vs in direct light. Just my experience, good luck with it.
:happyfish