Coraline Algea / Purple Up??

[vteel]

How do aquariums aquire that beautiful & beneficial purple algea? My husband mentioned 'purple up' as something he's heard of that helps to produce this?

My tank has regular algea, but none of that beautiful purple crust, me wants, how can I grow it? :help:

Thanks!

VTEEL

 

[Arakkis]

It'll take many months to grow that type of algae, if you have slime algaes chances are they are choking them out. Put in some olive nerite snails to get rid of the slime algaes and maybe scavenge the live rock bin at you lfs for a nie piece of rick that is already growing coraline algae.

 

[tanker]

It just takes time (with some calcium and light).

 

[Amphiprion]

I'd stay away from the purple-up. It can actually counterproductive to calcium and alkalinity maintenance. Since it contains powdered aragonite, it can cause a precipitation reaction (on a small scale) that will end up lowering calcium and alkalinity instead of raising them. Stick to balanced additives, the easiest of which is a good two part additive. You'll also want to make sure magnesium is adequate. If all those parameters are in the proper ranges, coralline algae will grow just fine.

 

[ProAquatics]

yeah ^ its just a type of calcium

 

[BToast]

Best to just wait a few months. Before you know it you will be trying to keep it off things, no longer concerned with it's growth. Few would dissagree that going the natural route is your best bet. If your tank has been up for a while and you don't see any you can bring it in on a piece of live rock and scrape some off into the water column. Just be patient, it will pay off in the long run.

 

[schigara]

My coralline took about 4 months before I saw even a single spot on the glass. I started with 80% base rock and just 20% live rock that was only slightly covered in coralline.

From day 1, I was maintaining Ca, ALk and Mag using Brightwells 2 part which includes mag in part A. It started growing fairly well after 4 months but really took off when I began dripping kalkwasser.

Tank has been up about a year and have to scrape the glass at least once a week.