Promoting Coralline Algae Growth?

[TheSwampFox]

Had an urchin pretty much devastate a lot of my rocks before I found the thing. It was tiny when it first came in on some live rock, and it seemed ok so I kept it.

Now the damn thing is huge and a lot of my rock has had it coralline algae stripped off... so what would be the best way to promote it to grow back quickly?

The urchin is off to the LFS btw.

 

[jworth]

they are good algae eaters unfortunately coralline is on the menu too. It should all grow back faster than it could eat it all though. Maintain proper calcium, dKH and magnesium levels and you will be back in business in no time. A product I have been interested to try is "Purple Up" to help accelerate coralline growth.

 

[TheSwampFox]

they are good algae eaters unfortunately coralline is on the menu too. It should all grow back faster than it could eat it all though. Maintain proper calcium, dKH and magnesium levels and you will be back in business in no time. A product I have been interested to try is "Purple Up" to help accelerate coralline growth.

My parents use purple up to make their own live rock from dead coral rock, it works pretty well. I'll probably buy some of that to dose my tank with.

Thanks for the help.

 

[snyder810]

they are good algae eaters unfortunately coralline is on the menu too. It should all grow back faster than it could eat it all though. Maintain proper calcium, dKH and magnesium levels and you will be back in business in no time. A product I have been interested to try is "Purple Up" to help accelerate coralline growth.

even the best coraline growing systems can have a hard time keeping up with some species of urchins. those things do work, other than that your advice is pretty spot on, i'll just add that keeping nitrates/phosphates low will also help

 

[nonstophoops]

+1 to all the above.

Purple up is not necessary as long as you keep your water parameters in line(nitrates, phosphates, calcium, magnesium, dkh, etc.) The purple up is really just liquid calcium so don't just pour a bunch in, it will do more harm than good. It can be helpful if you have not been supplementing your calcium otherwise however, because it will obviously bring those levels up.

 

[calpoly12]

Find a small piece of rock with some C.A. on it. Scrape some of the algae off it and into bowl that has saltwater int it. Put the piece back and "sprinkle" the scrapped debris back into the tank. Works for me

 

[nonstophoops]

Find a small piece of rock with some C.A. on it. Scrape some of the algae off it and into bowl that has saltwater int it. Put the piece back and "sprinkle" the scrapped debris back into the tank. Works for me

Great idea here to spread the stuff.

I generally drop the scraping in front of a powerhead and let the water flow blow them all over. This will help the spores spread all over the tank and you will have it growing in no time.

If you already have good coverage on a lot of your rock I wouldn't worry about it. Just keep good conditions and it will regrow over the open areas. It is pretty hard to make the stuff grow in the exact spot you want.

 

[FLESHY]

Dang that is strange...I always use high quality LR, so I never really have an issue with this, but have seen good results from the use of purple up.