live rock going white

slagger1

AC Members
Mar 22, 2007
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hi, can anyone tell me why my live rock is going white, its fijian rock and its been in my tank about a week, not all of it is white, its just in patches on different pieces, is this a sign that my rock is dying or is it normal, if it is a bad sign what can i do to sort this out thanx.
 
Please post pics!! Have you tried to touch it to see if it is a growth?? Did the rock have coraline algae on it when you got it??
 
the coraline is probably dieing because of poor lighting or lack of minerals/off pH, Ca, or ALK levels.
is jsut the color disapearing or all life on it? was it fully cured when you got it?
 
hence my coraline algae question
 
The lack of corallines is relatd to the level of phosphate. I bet if he takes a phosphate reading it will be high. Corallines recede quickly and turn white then, micro algae in either brown or green appears and smothers everything. Source water is almost always the problem, sometimes too much flake food without water changes and phosphate resins being used.

Please test the water for nitrates, phosphates, calcium, and Alkalinity. Poor lighting will create very dark purple corallines and intense lighting will create very bright pink corallines. Therefore, I suspect it is a phosphate issue.
 
ive done all the tests and they are spot on, there is no phosphate what so ever, ive nmanaged to take a few pics, so take a look at these

pic 1.JPG pic 2.JPG pic 3.JPG
 
i would suggest it is just die-off...with good circulation, the white will eventualy get blow or flake off the rock and eventually new coroline algae will grow over it...

Just out of interest, how long has the tank been running? i know you say the rock has only been in a week and could you post your latest water results for us?

Welcome to the Reef my friend..

Niko
 
hi, thanx for that, i was getting a bit worried that i had spent a lot of money to see it go down the drain, the tank has been running for 3 months.

the test results were

amonia = 0.1
nitrate = 10
nitrite = 0.1
phosphate = 0.25
calcium = 420mg
PH = 8.1

all these tests were done with nutrafin test kits
 
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