when is my live rock going to get some color?

sharpie

AC Members
Feb 2, 2006
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when should my live rock start to get some color? there are 3 small spots of green algae on the top of some of the rocks and under a little cave there are a couple of small leave looking things, but thats it. its just white and bare...anything i could do to make it look a little nicer. i have had it for 7 weeeks.
thanks for your time :dive2:
 
If your lfs has a refugium, ask if you can put a small piece of rock in it. It should have lots of stuff on it after a while.
 
is there anything that i can do here at home? or maye purchase something to put in the tank?
another question-
how important is colorful stuff?
thanks again :)
 
Depends on your lighting. Marine algae will grow much better with a lot of quality light.
 
:idea: last week i was at the store and i saw something called purple up ( or something like that ) ....what would this do?
and how importantant is the stuff growing on the live rock?
i just thought that since it was so expensive something should be growing on it... :confused:
 
Sharpie,

The big reason that we use live rock in salt water is for the beneficial bacteria that grows in the rocks as your system ages. Provided you have the recommended amount of rock per gal it can eventually become your primary means of filtration along with a good protein skimmer. Purple up is an additive that has calcium and trace elements that help the purple coralline algae grow on your rock. You need to make sure that your calcium levels are between 400-450 ppm and that you are giving the rocks enough light(intensity) and some time. It takes some time for coralline to grow. Hang in there.
 
Are you near Ohio??? I can send you some rock to seed what you have??? Cheaper just a thought.

Lib's
 
no im not in or near ohio, but thanks so much :) ...should i use something to seed it? or should i just let it be?i dont know where i was, but i read something that someone went to the fish store and scraped algae off of the big filter and then they added it to there tank. what was that about?
:dive2:
 
Skip the Purple Up -- you'd just be wasting your money on an all-in-one gimic product when you should be testing for and dosing the individual components as needed (calcium, alkalinity, magnesium -- although magnesium is usually kept up with very easily just with water changes). The individual products are also cheaper to use over time.

Seven weeks is not a long time, considering your initial cycle probably took up around 2 weeks of it. If you want to speed things up a little, find an established tank that has coralline algae on the glass and ask for some scrapings. Collect the scrapings in some water, then add the scrapings to your tank. To prevent them from getting separated out by any filtration system you have, you might want to add them to your tank via a turkey baster or needleless syringe instead of just pouring them into your tank. You can also use the baster / syringe to apply the scrapings (which will be a fine powder) to individual rocks. It sounds like a hassle, but really isn't. Another alternative is to borrow a small coralline covered rock from a fellow reefkeeper. Either way, it'll still be weeks before anything is noticable.

Don't worry, soon enough you'll be complaining about needing to scrape it off the front of your tank every few days.
 
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