Pics of Coralline Growth in a Mature System

[HanoverFist]

So, my tank is about 6 months old and I just swapped some rock out and re-aquascaped. This left me with a ton of white rock in the tank to stare at. That was a week ago.

Flashback:
6 months ago when I setup my tank I sat and stared at the rocks waiting for them to purple up. It took about 4 months for that to even begin. The lesson here is patience. As long as your water parameters, flow and light are up to snuff it will _eventually_ take off like wildfire.

That's why I'm posting this. People sit and wait, and wait and wait. Then they get frustrated and start wondering why they have no coralline algae in their tank and come here looking for answers.


Last week after aquascaping:


Notice there's minimal coralline on most of the rocks. Most are completely white - bleach white. The few rocks I kept from the old aquascape are seeding the entire tank. It's all dependent on the water parameters, light, flow and maturity of the tank from this point.


Today (about one week later):






Notice how they're all green now (first stages of coralline) and specks of pink and purple all over all the rocks? By the end of the month those rocks should be completely covered with pink and purple. At this point it grows over my glass fairly quickly. One week growth and I had specks speckling a good 40% of the glass. Two months ago I had maybe 4-5 specks on glass after a month.

So let this be a lesson in patience and proper aquarium care. If things are in check, and they usually should be, you just have to wait a few months for your tank to mature and it will start growing faster than you'd like. I know that's been stated numerous times, but I figured some pics of just how fast it can grow once you reach that point might help some people be a little more confident/patient.


NOTE: I DO NOT supplement anything in my tank. Just water changes. No kalk, no 2-part, nothing. Just plain ol Instant Ocean salt - not even Reef Crystals.

[boogerCo]

I have watched my coraline grow from start thru today. Some days I will see more other days I see less. I am not on the 7th month of my newest tank and I am just now getting some coraline in spots that is starting to glow under atanics. Either it is from the new vho attanic or it is just the new coraline. I do have lots of red and some light purple/pink coraline all over the place. THe newest is spots everywhere in the upper levels of the rock about the size of a pencil eraser. almost looks like poke a dots everywhere.

[HanoverFist]

4 days later....













I hope this helps some people just setting up realize that their patience will pay off eventually, and when conditions are right it will start moving pretty fast.


I'll post more pics at the 2 week and one month marks. Betting it's 90% purple by then.

[1fishkeeper]

Wow that stuff grows like a wildfire in your tank.

[RogueX]

Very bright color. I wish mine will look like this. What lights do you have over your tank?

[dzhuo]

Are you sure these are coralline?

[derekdelisi]

Not Coralline.

[tspors]

Yes cyano can grow fast. Becareful, that is not coraline.....

[alaskan84]

I'm not so sure that is cyano...ive got alot of the dark red/purplish colored corraline on my rocks, its almost plating and looks similar to his...absolutly not cyano in my tank, but the OP's pictures are showing some insanly fast growth if it is corraline.

[brannock_16]

+1 to cyano or other type of nuisance algae.

[HanoverFist]

LOL It's coralline. I scrape my glass daily to keep up with it.

It's also rock hard and grows from the lights down. It also follows the pattern of light green -> deep red -> light purple. That's coralline growth - nothing like cyano. Cyano also tends to grow in low flow areas. Those are the highest flow areas of my tank.

The fact half of my rocks are very well-covered with coralline and there's hardly no stoney corals in my tank helps a ton. I also do small WC's regularly. My parameters are well within adequate parameters at all times. I think the new light is helping a lot too.

I also scrub a well-covered rock every 3 days in front of a powerhead. This, and the snails and hermits with coralline covered shells, really helps it spread like wildfire. I started doing this months ago when coralline first began spreading after the cycle. It really does make a difference in how fast it spreads.


Anyways, see ya again i an couple weeks. You can point at all the bright pink spots and claim it's a new strain of cyano or something.

[dzhuo]

I think you will be the better judge whether these are coralline or not but from the description, I don't believe these are coralline for number of reasons:

1. The grow pattern doesn't look like it. Look at this picture and compare the real coralline from the right, you will see even when they start out, the grow pattern is entirely different.



2. It's highly unlikely coralline grows that fast in 4 days. Even for some of the best tanks in RC, I have never heard coralline grows this fast in 4 days.

3. Coralline are highly attach to plastic surface. your first picture shows virtually no coralline on your powerhead which is rare because if you do have an environment that grows coralline so quickly (out of this world), I would imagine your power heads are all cover in coralline.

4. Only new rocks you add show the grow. Again if your tank is so ideal for coralline and spread to the new rocks so quickly, I would reason your old rocks (which already had an established coralline base) would grow even faster but looking at your pictures, the old rocks are the same.

But if you like it, it doesn't really matter at all. If you can provide a close up and clearer picture, I think it would help.

[bad santa]

"LOL It's coralline. I scrape my glass daily to keep up with it. "


do you scrape your heater too cause theres no sign of coralline on it. I think you got a bit of an algea bloom on your new rocks. Its part of the cycle even in an established tank that you add new rocks to it.

[125G Reefer]

Hey bro, take your finger and swirl it around the bright red carpet on one of the larger rocks, coralline should not just fluff off. Cyano will kinda just fluff off when you do this. The bright red stuff is cyano man. Not fo nothing though. Just an observation.

[HanoverFist]

My heater was covered with it. As was most other things until I cleaned them all recently. PH's are next on that list. The topsides are covered and have been cleaned once already since adding them a couple months ago. So that's about the same amount of time this rock has been in tank .


I even scratched it today during WC just because you had me wondering if I was mistaken.

It's not slimy and doesn't come off unless I flake it off by force. Denture brush wouldn't move it unless I put in some serious effort and then it only exposed a bit of the rock below.



If it wasn't rock hard and smooth I would believe you. But cyano is slimy and wouldn't require I break it off in flakes to expose the rock below. A denture brush would surely scrub it right off.

Therefore, it must be coralline algae.



This stage of coralline always progressed fast in my tank. Even when initially setup, once it started out an rock it spread outward quickly. The heavy purple/pink stuff takes about 10 times as long to spread. All my old rocks were thoroughly covered to begin with so no idea how one could expect to see a lot of base growth there. Especially on the rocks you pointed out. Keyword here is base coat. That's what grows fastest for me.

The pics I posted were also of it's fastest progression since adding it. It hasn't grown nearly that fast other than during that short period. That was it covering all the large, upward facing surfaces. But it will still have that entire rock covered within a month or so at the pace it is growing.




So, next time you're looking at a picture, across the internet, and decide to offer some advice. Maybe check if it's knowledgeable, well-placed advice - or are you just spouting off like a pompous jerk. How many asked for further input or offered actual insight or solutions? How may asked about lighting, parameters, where the rock came from, etc?

The tone of some of your replies in this thread make your comments utterly useless to anyone but the self-righteous fool on the soapbox behind the monitor. How many of you actually offered advice to determine if it was coralline or cyano? Not many eh? I count one. Fortunately, there were some who made the effort to maintain their civility and integrity while replying. I hope they realize my scorn is not meant for them.

Remember, it's people who make an honest effort to help others that make these boards work, not the condescending jerks who do nothing but troll forums to pad their false sense of self-worth.


I'm done here. Good luck.

[Rockys_Pride]

No sir, good luck to you

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[streak]

Heres what coraline looks like on glass.. Mine took off after I changed to leds on my nano..



Get more flow going on those rocks.. possibly nab up some more cuc. Did you soak aka cook these new rocks for 6 weeks to remove the P04? if not well its gunna leach phosphates for a while causing cyno blooms..

[Angel*Fish]

Pretty tank and thanks for caring enough to post these pics. RC can be a tough audience.

[mhurley]

Hanover

I recommend you adjust your tone. No one here attacked you the way you did to them. They made observations with the information and pictures available to them. If you are not able to take the compliments along with critiques without insulting people, might I suggest you log off of all Internet forums?

And for the record, in my personal experience in over 10 years in this hobby, I've never seen coralline grow in 4 days. Nusience algae, absolutely.