Coralline bloom.

Let's see a pic or two!

coaraline algae is a sign of a good, healthy tank. Scrape it off the galss and anywhere you dont want it but it looks cool growing on the back wall and over all the rocks. if you really want to get rid of it any sort of urchin would eat it fairly quickly.

1.) I would say the growth of coraline aglea is a good thing. I think C.A. requires pretty good tank parameters to thrive so the fact that you see it in your tank means its in check atm. Obviously, dont try to use a C.A. rule to check how well your params are, stick with the tests kits for that

2.) I think it really only really affects the calcium level. But I dont think it's such a big deal that you would worry about it, unless you wanna have alot of sps but then you would be worrying about calc, alk, and mg anyways.

3.) I would say just worry about scraping the stuff that's on the piece of glass that you view the tank from. Some people don't like any coralline at all on any of the glass but I kind of like a coraline speckled background so I never scrape the coralline off the background pieces of glass on my tank. You dont need to worry about the powerheads at this point. Sometime down the line, you might wanna get rid of it because it may effect the flow but for now it sounds like you'll be fine. As for the rocks, this is where you want the coralline to thrive the most-purple rock just looks freakin awesome lol.

Keep in mind that the type of lighting you have plays a role as well. From what I've seen, C.A does best with T5 or PC lighting. I dont think it requires really intense metal halide lighting. Im using LED's on my tank and considering how long it's been running there isn't a whole lot of C.A growth. I think this had something to do with LEDs being point lighting which C.A doesn't thrive under.

Pfisherman said:

I hope it doesn't start growing on my snail shells.

Click to expand...

This most likely will happen. I have several hermits and snails that are covered with coraline. No need to worry though, it doesn't hurt them or anything.

Agreed. Once CA starts growing, it can only be held back by urchins, etc. Get yourself a good scraper !

Pfisherman - I saw your message about delayed posts and tried to PM you but you seem to have those blocked. Anyway, you should not see the delay that you experienced with your 1st few posts any longer.

Reason I was asking for pics was to confirm it is actually CA. Hope it is and as far as my two cents goes I say scrape everything.

Purple on the rocks is definitely Coralline, the growth on the sand is definitely cyano and the green spots on the sand and rock are early stages of green hair. It's very early in the game for you, so you should start testing for Nitrates and Phosphates with good quality kits and keep them in check. If PO4 gets out of control the tank will spiral in the opposite direction much faster than the positive trend you've see to date. Even though the tank is lightly stocked (which is a good thing), consider running GFO in a reactor to keep PO4 in check, while keep an eye on Alk. Make sure you change GFO on a regular basis if you go that route.