A Perplexing Live Rock issue. So far 3 people have given me different answers.

I posted a couple days ago regarding a Diatom bloom and a strange white spotting I was getting in my tank. I got multiple answers which I can't seem to make heads or tails of. I have taken the issue to professional coral/live rock aquaculturialists and to the forum here in general and have gotten multiple answers which make no sense.

Background:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
KH: <12
Calcium: 380
PH: 8.3/8.4

This was Aquacultured Fiji Live Rock and Tonga Branch Live Rock. The Fiji was nice shades of purple and green and off shades of Red. The Tonga Live branch was light pink, red and some purple. It was very nicely colored and I cured in tank until my readings were as above. I normally keep the calcium at around 400-420 but tonights reading was a tad low.

One week ago on Tuesday I noticed I was getting brown algae starting to form on my live rock. It started as a couple spots and rapidly took over the whole tank. I not being completely clueless recognized it as a diatom bloom. I confirmed this with a friend and a professional and was told not to do anything, it was normal and would go away with no ill effects. I continued as normally and made sure my cleanup crew of 4 margarita snails and 3 red tipped hermits were doing ok.

Saturday I noticed that there were white spots starting at the top of the tank just like the diatoms has started, and I thought it might be the diatoms going away. I asked some people about the white spots and got told:

#1. Your live rock is losing it's coralline algae and slowly dieing, buy new live rock.

#2. (From the Forums) This was white coralline algae from the Tonga region and will turn purple.

#3. They didn't know.

#4. This was Coralline Algae bleaching due to my lights. (From the company I purchased it from)

Well... None seem to be the right answer, or I am reading this wrong, except for maybe sadly... #1. On Sunday the White spots had grown to baseball size in some areas and new spots forming. On Monday nearly all rocks have white on them and the Diatom bloom is rapidly reducing as well. Tonight, the rock looks like base rock. Some still have small patches of coralline on it. However the majority of the color from the rock is gone and the areas with color are covered still by diatoms. (The Diatoms is the best looking color in my tank... sad isn't it?)

Now I am well aware of curing live rock and the processes and the live rock had been in the tank for over 2 months. My water is clear as day. I have even including pictures of the testing below, confirmed by a separate test in case I was getting false negatives.

The issues I have with the responses are simple. #2. No-one has heard of coralline algae on live rock "changing" colors from white to purple. Colors can deep but don't change. And this is not even a hint of purple shade in this white, it looks like bone. #3 While the lighting can bleach out coralline algae, it had again been in there for several months under those lights. Additionally bleaching happens over time and this has happened rapidly within 72 hours from mass diatom bloom to base rock with no color. Finally, with the loss of color is bad, Live rock can and does regenerate itself and I am loathe to just go buy new live rock, I would rather re-seed this and let the existing algae continue to work if it survives a couple more days at this rate.

The current pics, and they are a bit bad.

(note the White on the rock AWAY from the light.. Bleaching?)

There is also a purple tint on the Diatoms, If you see what looks like purple on the rock, it's Diatom brown being washed out.

[Frick-n-Frags]

heh, your coralline turns white when it dies since it builds its mass from calcium. If that rock was exposed to air, the coralline can die. UV from MH will bleach it white. whatever you did/are doing wrong is killing your coralline, and it could be a ton of stuff, INCLUDING water chemistry (no, not the 3 parameters of a thousand you can measure, often new tanks just aren't biologically stable to support coralline for many months after startup)

the only answer you got that was full of s*** was the one about the "tonga white" algae good one. (and you can kick the jerk trying to sell you more LR too )

what you really want is your tank to be growing its own coralline. there is always initial dieoff on LR including some of the algae population


SO, run your tank correctly, keep your parameters in line, and BE PATIENT The old rule of thumb was "when you see coralline growing the size of dimes on your powerheads, your tank is stabilizing"

[Frick-n-Frags]

I need to make another post

if that rock was in the tank 2 months, you can eliminate lights and air. the diatoms may have smothered the coralline or your water chemistry is off


just because some coralline dies doesn't mean your LR dies.
seeding, reseeding LR is all about the bacteria that does filtering, not what color trim is on the rocks like I said, kick the goober that wants to sell you new rock. your rock is fine

[tgfrench]

The coralline does appear to be dying off. Your Ca looks a lil low, but your Alk is a lil on the high side (not bad) but their not in balance. Boost your Ca and check your Mag. I believe things will turn around. Plus your tank is still young from appearances. It will take a lil time to stablize.

[hmello@bermexin]

I agree. Check chemical balance and bring it back to the basics. Your coralline will grow back. DO NOT pitch and buy new rock. If you are going to pitch anything make it the person that told you to buy new rock. Patience my friend, it will come back.

[FZ1Rider]

And seriously be patient. You can't fix this and stop the coraline from dying over night. This happened to me while setting up my tank (I even bought some "white" coraline not realizing that it was dead). Now I just 2 months after starting the tank I have a good amount of coraline growing on the white parts and on the glass.

Peter.

[rustybucket145]

I'm about to tell you the most important thing you will EVER learn about keeping a saltwater tank.....

BE PATIENT!!!!!

You gotta learn not to freak out over the small things like this. And also know that if you ask a question, you are going to get 100 different answers from 100 different people. Some may be right, some wrong. Just be patient, gather your own info, form your own opinion and decide what action to take.

[Shagsbeard]

If you asked someone ten years ago, you would have gotten a completely different answer.... especially from experts. This hobby isn't static, nor are any of the answers you get "right".

Patience with your tank. Let it stabalize, and establish itself. If after 5-6 months your problem is still there, we can start chucking out theorys. My personal theory is there might be some metals in your tank... but without tests, I couldn't tell you.

Well checking for metals in the tank is an easy enough test.

As far as the responses, my Hardness is off my testing scale. I have a feeling that's the issue based on the responses. I used RO water that is pre-mixed at an unnamed professional facility here that uses it for professional coral propagation and sale. I would highly highly doubt it's the water.

I can also test the other parameters. My Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate are ok, my Calcium at -this- test was a tad low. Normally it sits at the 400-420 range.

Any suggestions on what metals I should be testing for? I dose the tank currently for Magnesium, Iodine, Calcium and Trace elements.

How does one reduce Hardness? When testing it this morning it's well above 12 and I know that's high but to be frank I didn't know what effect it could have on it, and my notorious sources said it would affect "Nothing".

[coyoteseven]

It'll come back, I started my 10g nano with completely dead base rock... no coraline, bacteria, pods, in other words... DEAD!

I threw a piece of LR in from my 90g about the size of a golf ball, less than three months later I had coraline everywhere, pods, etc.

Of course I do drip homemade kalkwasser (pickling lime & RO/DI) for top-off, which I'm sure didn't hurt at all.

If a patch of coraline survives anywhere on your rock and you keep your alk/calc levels within reason... you'll be surprised how quick it will come back.

[rustybucket145]

Magnesium, Iodine, Calcium and Trace elements.

I would never dose anything you can't test. Trace elements should be provided in the salt you mix water with to do water changes.

Also, how are you dosing calcium. This is most likely causing causing the upswing in alk.

The specific products I dose with:

Purple Up

Reef Complete - My Main Calcium

Reef Plus - Vitamins, minor trace elements

Walt Smith's Fiji Gold - Calcium alternate

Please keep in mind I live in Rhinelander, WI home of Doctor's Foster and Smith so I can get anything from their catalog within the day from the outlet here. Any ideas? I am going to run up to the Drs today and get a battery of new test kits:

Strontium, Copper, Silica, Magnesium, Borate, Iron

And to the specific question, I dose exactly like the Reef Complete instruction say, via a 5 ml syringe.

Any other suggestions?

[Frick-n-Frags]

you have now gotten beyond me, because I wouldn't have a clue as to what all that stuff is adding.
read the sides of all those bottles and add it all up to see what all is going in. seriously.
yeah, I'm laughing in anticipation of the AOOGAH! when you add up the list.
and give extra bonus points to anything exotic sounding that shows up more than once. heh

SO, I can only sling some generic things to think about:
most of the successful tank owners know several things:

1) exactly what, and in what amounts they are putting in their tanks
2) how to monitor key parameters accurately to enable constant level maintenance.
3) maintain constant levels of key parameters by knowing exactly how much of whatever to add.
(nice tight little family there)
4) unless something is specifically being depleted, don't arbitrarily add any other stuff.

and here's some I support also:
IMO, unless you have a specific special system, you don't need to test for major traces, and you don't need to dose for them. 2 components of a vicious cycle of test-kit-n-bottle-of-additivitis

waterchanges is the key to adding traces and dilution of accumulating pollution.


also, think first:what kind of metals would be getting in your tank?
think about what has changed in your tank and maybe that will lend a clue to the following change in coralline.
Also, watch everything else like a hawk, just in case that's just the tip of the iceburg.

try to piece the puzzle better before just throwing a bunch of money on a hope. best of luck.

[tgfrench]

Its probably the purple up thats causing the alk to be high but your sign < 12 says less than twelve which isn't that bad. That in itself should help your coralline growth along with a balanced Ca reading.

Ok I have the wrong >< sign for Alk it's WAAAAYYY above 12, and I think I got my answer from the Head of the Coral farm today at Drs Foster and Smith. It has to do with the diatoms and how I am dosing rather then what I am dosing..

I was told I likely have fluctuations in temps in the tank (I will buy an oversized heater now and replace this one) and when I am dosing either the powder or the liquid suppliment I was just dumping it in after disolving it per the instructions and this is leading to a Calcium and Alk spike. This is likely what is causing the bleaching on the rocks, I need to use a doser for calcium and Reduce my Alkalinity. (I have no idea how to do that)

any ideas?

[tgfrench]

as for reducing alk don't add any for a couple of days, test, wait till it drops and start trying to figure out how much to add to keep your alk between 8-9 dkh I like running mine around 10. they have the drip dosing bottles at you LFS. one way to do it is just add some in the morning and more in the evening. I think the diatoms are just part of the natural cycling of your STILL VERY IMMATURE tank. don't fret them as of yet get yourself some snails and they will polish it off.

What I decided to do. Nothing really. I am going to perform my normal 25% water change today to help with Alk. I am changing my dosing method to Kalkwasser with a doser for ease of use to help with Calcium and just keep watching it. I did get a larger clean up crew by a factor of 5 but I planned on those anyway and I will suppliment them until the coralline algae grows back and I have natural algae grows in this admittedly immature tank. I will also be testing other areas.

[hmello@bermexin]

Azial you are way over thinking this coarlline "problem" IMO. Stop dosing anything, start doing your water change regimen on a regular basis and let your tank chill out. Before you know it things will start to show signs of life including the coralline, other algae, and who knows what from the LR. Give it a chance to work and you will be rewarded.

JMO

[jmack]

I personally would bump up the calcium a little...with that alk so high it should probably be in the 450 range..also check your magnesium since it's required to build corraline.

[The0wn4g3]

Kalkwasser is obviously an excellent thing to dose.
I use Kent's Two part "Tech-CB" and it does a very good job. I've seen very good results in tanks from only using the SeaChem Reef Complete, also.
Whatever you do, don't make the change too sudden.

it's probably not a temperature problem though, I've seen my tank swing a full 7-10degrees when my heater started going crazy. The least effects the temperature had on anything was the coralline algae.

Good luck finding the solution.

[Joshua1023]

I think Frick-n-Frags said it best. Your water changes are key. I don't dose anything but calcium and alkalinity based on what I'm reading from the tank that week. Before you know it your coraline will be a problem and you'll be trying to figure out how to get rid of it.

[cpagego]

My understanding is that Ca++ goes hand in hand with alkalinity. Forming: Ca(HCO3)2. If Ca++ is low then there must be another positively charged cation in large quantity in the water. Any ideas as to what it could be? Are you perhaps overdosing with Magnesium? Or, something else. Check the additives. I have no idea if this is contributing to your problem.

[Craig Lambert]

Originally posted by Joshua1023
I think Frick-n-Frags said it best. Your water changes are key. I don't dose anything but calcium and alkalinity based on what I'm reading from the tank that week. Before you know it your coraline will be a problem and you'll be trying to figure out how to get rid of it.

I'll second that. Know your calcium, ALK, and magnesium levels. Drip Kalk, or dose a daily 2 part solution.

Don't dose anything else with the exception of magnesium if needed to reach the 1300-1350 level. If the diatoms bother you while the tank is maturing add a couple of turbo snails. They love diatoms, and will clean them off the rock in no time.

[puffer21]

do you know what your magnesisum level is that could help alot with finding the problem. but right now i wouldnt dose anything but calcuim and alk if you need it other than that just water changes.

[4fishman]

Are you running any ozone in the tank. If so be sure that the ozone rich water is run through carbon before allowing it to enter the tank. Just a thought no one mentioned this subject.