Anyone willing to help.

J

jawdubb

I have a few things I need help with.

First I will let you know what my system is comprised of. It is a 55 gallon non rr tank. I have a HOB 2.5 gal refugium with macro algaes (thanks Frank) I also have a HOB CPR Bakpak skimmer. 2 300 gph powerheads and an emporer 400 biowheel. There is plenty of flow. For lighting I have the Coralife 4X65 watt PC lights and have added a 45" blue led for nightime effects. I test often for ammonia which always reads 0, Nitrites always 0, PH ranges from 8.0-8.3 depending on when I test it, and my nitrates which I have been battling range from 20-40. My calcium is right around 400-420, and my alk is 11dkh. I do not have a test for phosphates or nitrates or magnesium.

I had a hair algea problem for about 2.5 months and now it is gone and I can see all of the rockwork very well. My problem that I need help with is I see no corraline algae growth at all. I do have a few rocks in the tank that have some on it, but there has been no growth from these rocks. I have heard of people using Purple Up to boost the growth, but with the calcium sitting where i need it to be I am afraid to add this to the tank. Any advice on how to spur the growth to get the rockwork looking better would be appreciated.

I also am curious if anyone has kept a rock anemone before as I have seen a few lately that I like and I am also curious to whether or not they are a nuisance species. Can these or will these eat fish?

Now for a little bit of a kicker. I have a 10G tank that I have mechanical filtration on (cheap) and I took some of the substrate from the 55 gallon to start this tank. I also have a Red Sea skimmer on the 10 gallon to help with water flow. I used some of the rubble rock from breaking the rock to fit where I wanted in the 55 gal in this 10 gal tank. I took a small part of the clean-up crew to this tank as well, 2 hermits, and around 4 snails. This tank is growing coralline algae very nicely. Although it is green instead of purple it is still the algae I am looking for. Any thoughts as to why it will grow in this tank and not in the 55 gal. I use this 10 gal. as a frag tank for mushrooms and ricordeas and when I put them in here they all heal up nicely and stick to the substrate so I can move them back into the 55 gal.

I am sorry for the length, but wanted to post any answers to questions I could see being asked. I am sure I will have more in the future, and would like to say thank you for any help in advance.

Jon Williams
 
I'd imagine the reason you don't see much coralline is because of the nitrate level in your tank. My tank has very little coralline in it, and my nitrates are up as well.

Then again, I do have coralline growth in my sump, my refugium, the propagation section and the quarantine tank. And my angled tank has it too. They all have the same water.

That being said, I don't know. :p
 
Leave the Actinics on for an extended period - like 24 hours a day for a week or two.

Limit the white light for a while.

Supposedly makes it grow like crazy (it's a deep water algea, grows best where it gets lots of blue light).
 
Frank,

Thanks for the reply. I am curious now if the blue leds I run at night will affect this or only the actnic spectrum. I have a nice led bar I run almost every night except for when I actually need to go to sleep easily. The blue led light lights almost all of the tank the way I have it set up.
 
I'd get rid of the biowheel and get another powerhead. Is the tank facing a window?

Rock anemones will eat fish. I lost 2 (or was it 3?) to a single little 'nem. Supposedly if you feed them every week they'll be fine but they have really powerful stingers and grab really well.

I'd recommend for the coralline is getting a couple of small liverocks from a member or LFS that's already covered in coralline. Your hair algae probably smothered most of your coralline.
 
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