Many things can contribute to this trouble, but a lack of iodine and calcium or overexposure to light are the most likely causes. Live rock is composed of the calcium carbonate skeletons of coral organisms, with many forms of microscopic and macroscopic marine life living on it and inside of it. Live rock becomes the main biological filter of a saltwater aquarium and provides shelter to the creatures in it. You also make your aquarium more attractive by using live rock, which is why seeing it turn white is a concern.
Iodine is what gives corals and coralline algae their color, and calcium provides their calcareous structure. If you don't keep your aquarium provided with these two minerals, you may begin to see your live rock turning white.
But simply adding them is not enough, the timing and how they are introduced are also important. If you have a protein skimmer , it will remove any added iodine in 24 hours, and most times remove other additives as well. For this reason, it is important to use time-released iodine or turn off the skimmer for a period of time to allow the inhabitants to absorb the iodine.
Many aquarists highly recommend Kent Marine iodine products, especially if you need the time-released type. Using tap water can contribute to developing white on your live rock. When you do water changes with tap water, you need to use a de-chlorinator. The chlorine in tap water is toxic to all of your aquarium inhabitants.
Another reason why you should not use tap water is that it can be a source of adding more nitrates to your aquarium. In a reef tank, the optimal amount of nitrate is a level that is too low to measure.
In other words, zero is best. It is commonly introduced into an aquarium by placing live rock into the aquarium. For a full list of aquarium hitchhikers see our article, Live Rock Hitchhikers. Coralline Algae is a colorful component to any aquarium and adds to the overall aesthetics of your live rocks, it plays an important part of reef health in a closed system such as your fish tank as well as in the wild.
But did you know that there are over known species to date? The colors of these species are most typically purple, violet, lavender, pink, and magenta, but there are hundreds of different color variations, including red, blue, white, yellow, and green.
Our team at ARC Reef has a stain of coralline that is bright orange in color and it phosphorescence under UV and actinic lighting. We are actively trying to propagate this very rare strain of algae to all our live rock for sale. It is a very slow growing stain though, but in a years time, we expect all our live rock for sale to come with a splash of this particular strain.
It is a vibrant color combination of purple and pink. Most Live Rock that you find in a fish tank will look pale or washed out over time. Purple Helix is bright and strikingly vibrant.
Currently, ARC Reef is the only distributor that offers such a vibrant strain and has now started offering this strain for purchase with their new product called, Coralline Algae in a Bottle, Purple Helix. Coralline Algae will not appear in a tank or closed system on its own like other nuisance algae. It must be introduced into your aquarium, usually from Live Rock or by hitchhiking in on snails and hermit crabs that were collected in the wild.
High-quality Live Rock will have dozens of different species and varying textures and colors, all of which are competing for space on the live rock.
In general, Coralline Algae is a very hardy species and it is found in every ocean in the world from inter-tidal zones that are exposed at low tide, all the way to depths as deep as 1, ft.
It can tolerate a wide range of turbidities and nutrient concentrations. Basically, it can survive any marine environment that sunlight can get to. Here are some tips for helping you get the most Coralline possible in your reef tank. While technically speaking all Coralline Algae is red algae belonging to the Phylum Rhodophyta greek, meaning rose-red plant.
Red algae are the most diversified of all algae, with over 4, tropical species and 7, species total. Usually, when someone speaks of red coralline algae they are speaking of calcareous algae, a type of crustose coralline algae. Non-coralline red algae are weed-like, growing in reddish translucent tangles, but others may appear mossy or fuzzy such as Wrangelia penicillata, not to be confused for fuzzball algae or cyanobacteria, while technically it is of the blue-green algae family it belongs to the phylum — Cyanophyta.
Chances are that you yourself have benefited from red algae and not even known it. Select species of red algae such as Porphyra, are cultured for use as human food. Cultivation of species such as Gelidium and Pterocladiais are valued for sulfated polygalactans present in their extracellular matrices.
These are extracted and purified as agar, agarose, and carrageenans, and widely used for laboratory cell-culture media, nucleic acid research, or food processing. Such polymers have unique colloidal properties which are too complex for industrial synthesis even to this day, and thus red algae are the only sources. Red coralline algae or corallines, such as Lithothamnion and Porolithon both species contained in ARC Reefs Bottled Coralline Algae , play a major ecological role in coral reefs.
These red algae occur as hard, flat sheets that consolidate and stabilize the wave impacted crests of coral reefs and are classified as keystone organisms. Keystone species are highly valued and their decline could cause a collapse of large scale structure and entire communities or reef systems. Fossil evidence has shown that red coralline algae have been playing this vital keystone role for over million years.
Red slime algae are actually Cyanobacteria. It is considered to be the evolutionary link between bacteria and algae. Cyanobacteria is one of the oldest forms of life on earth and dates back to 3. In the hobby we consider cyanobacteria as just another nuisance algae but did you know that without it we as a species would not exist. It can be identified by its deep cranberry or red coloring and it has a slimy stringy appearance.
It may occasionally have air bubbles on it, as these organisms produce oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. Luckily eradicating it takes very little effort on your part and it can be gone within just a few short days if caught early.
Here are the 3 steps to ridding your aquarium of Cyanobacteria: while you can do each step independently, I recommend doing all steps at the same time in order to quickly remove all the bacteria present. You can later reverse these steps one at a time in order to identify what the cause was.
Make sure to use RODI water. Tap water may already contain high levels of phosphates. Green coralline algae is usually something that is misidentifed by a newcomer into the aquaria hobby.
Many times the hobbyist will purchase a new saltwater aquarium, set up his brand new reef tank and after 3 or 4 weeks go by will start to see diatoms on their new reef rock.
Diatoms appear as a brown filamentous coating. These diatoms will be on the rock, on the glass, and will look like sprinkled cinnamon on the sand. After months these diatoms will now die off without silicates present in the water column in which to feed off. After diatoms now will come different types of green algae. One green algae that does not need to be introduced is called. Remember, any coralline algae must be introduced to the tank, it will not grow on its own, this included green coralline algae.
This type of green looking algae can appear almost neon in color. It is fast growing, and can coat your rocks in a matter of a week. This green algae is actually a precursor to coralline algae. People often confuse this alga for green coralline algae, it is not though. Green coralline algae is very slow glowing. It will never propagate over an entire reef tank like your common species of coralline. This is not at all accurate. This green algae will not turn to coralline algae either, it will be replaced and grown over by coralline, this will only happen though once your tanks water quality is up to par.
If your water parameters fluctuate, your nitrates are high, or your flow is low then it can take up to 1 year to be replaced. Normally if everything looks good then the average timeframe will be months for this phase of your tanks cycle. It should be viewed as a confirmation that your tank is on the home stretch. Do not panic, do not acid wash all your rock and reef work.
Be patient and enjoy this finaly stage properly. Green coralline algae does exist though but these species are extremely slow growing, they often only grow in small circles and will never spread over an entire tank.
Little is known to date of its susceptibility to global warming and acidification. What we do know is that corallines deposit calcite in their cell walls which contains magnesium. These species with higher magnesium content are more vulnerable to ocean acidification, particularly in colder waters.
The correct spelling is Coralline Algae, for some unknown reason, the dictionary on most computers does not recognize this spelling and wants to correct it to Coraline Algae or even Caroline Algae, which is not the correct spelling. Every purchase helps rebuild our reef tract right here in the U. For every 1 pound of Live Rock purchased we plant 10lbs of Live Rock in the ocean.
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You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Purple Liverock?!? Thread starter stiffler70 Start date Sep 13, Hey guys, just wondering, how do you get nice purple liverock? I've provided a photo for reference.
The reason i do so is because everytime i speak to someone bout purple live rock they always recommend purple up but i find it a complete waste of money and inefficient. One of my friends who actually has really nice purple live rock believes its all about the lighting. He states T5's allow for coralline algae to grow much more readily then using Metal halides.
Just want some opinions from people with experience, thanks for all input. Kingumar Member. I was suggested that good calcium levels also help with that. T5's tend to do the job better but MH's are also fine. Take a piece of live rock with coralline algae on it.
Take it out of the tank and scrape the algae off with a blade.
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