red cystalline algae

[bzolnowski]

hello, i have a question, i have a 75 gallon tank set up for six months now with perfect numbers. i have a lot of deep red crystalline algae growing on my live rock, about 1/3 of it is covered. my question is, it looks beautiful but is this a good thing or bad? i cant find this information anywhere, please help! thanks, brian.

 

[bang guy]

Coralline algae inhibits the growth of less desireable algae on your rocks.

 

[bzolnowski]

so it is a good idea to just let it spread and grow where it wants?

 

[cnlight]

You can let the corraline algae spread to wherever it wants. I would recomend that you scrape it off glass. You wouldn't want to wake up one morning and not be able to see your fish because of a hard purple film. :thinking:

 

[bzolnowski]

thanks for the input guys. i was just very surprised as its a beautiful deep deep red algae on the rocks. i keep it off the glass. does anyone else have this deep red color algae?

 

[elfdoctors]

Coraline algae can come in multiple colors. Besides the common purple color, I have some in a dark maroon color. I was getting over a cyanobacteria outbreak (which is the other dark red algae you should make sure you don't have) but this patch persisted. Eventually I scraped it and realized this is coraline. It is not spreading as fast as my purple coraline.

 

[bzolnowski]

thanks elf, it seems as though we are talking about the same stuff. i remember the other red algae, from what i remember, that stuff is a lot lighter then the coralline. thanks again. brian.