coraline algae growth or lack of

[Scubajoe1]

My tank has been established for a while and when I was at 6 months old in the tank I had some awesome coralline algae growth. I also had only 6 snails then. It's now 1.5 months old and I have hardly any growth except on the snails. I have a hundred or so snails now. I am guessing they are eating it up? Alkalinity constant at 10, 440 ppm Ca, 1 ppm nitrate, 0.01 ppm phosphate.

Do I just need to sell off some of these reproductive things?

[xanthurum]

Do you have LED's? If so there you go for some reason they don't grow it very well

[Scubajoe1]

I do but I also have T5s as well plus there was ridiculous coralline algae growth up to about 6 months into it.

Joe

[xanthurum]

Maybe you just don't see it much anymore because you look at it everyday. By the way I used to live near Raleigh and I just posted in the NC club area about wanting a pic of my old Black Tang. I sold it to Down Under before I moved to Arizona. Do you know if it's still there?

[Scubajoe1]

Maybe you just don't see it much anymore because you look at it everyday. By the way I used to live near Raleigh and I just posted in the NC club area about wanting a pic of my old Black Tang. I sold it to Down Under before I moved to Arizona. Do you know if it's still there?

Down under Scuba? They closed down since the owner died of a heart attack. I have pics of now and 12 months ago. I will see if I can dig them up.

Joe

[xanthurum]

No it was a saltwater store. It was in Cary but I heard they moved to Raleigh

[Scubajoe1]

we only have the fish room (2 of them), reef keepers in clayton and a new store in cary (fintastic), those are the only ones I know of oh and one near wake forest but more fresh than salt.

[scallywags]

Do you have LED's? If so there you go for some reason they don't grow it very well

is this true??

[xanthurum]

Yes it's true. I just googled and they are closed. I wonder what happened to my fish.

[Scubajoe1]

is this true??

I think it depends on several conditions. Mine grew nuts under LEDs before the snailplosion. Let me find a pic.

[Scubajoe1]

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k130/Scuba_joe/20150927_164405_resized_zpsayfa3nno.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k130/Scuba_joe/20150627_185526_zpswvapmvp1.jpg

Here are a couple shots when the coralline growth was great

[vikinglord13]

I'm having a similar problem where my snails are being covered with coraline algae. I'm a tad annoyed because I enjoy looking at the patterns in their shells. My chief concern is do I have any reason to worry for fhe health of fhe snail?

[oseymour]

Do you have LED's? If so there you go for some reason they don't grow it very well

You are flat out wrong here - I grow coralline algae well on every tank and I've never used any light but LEDs.

I've seen a lot of tanks, in person, that grow corralline algae with cheap and high end LEDs.

I grew corraline algae in my sump with a JBJ nano glo refugium LED light - it seemed to grow faster than the cheato

[jlmawp]

I'm having a similar problem where my snails are being covered with coraline algae. I'm a tad annoyed because I enjoy looking at the patterns in their shells. My chief concern is do I have any reason to worry for fhe health of fhe snail?

Nope. In fact, in the wild, I'd guess this helps them with camouflage.

[jlmawp]

Scuba, a couple things that I noticed with my coralline (I'm at about 5.5 months now):

For some reason, mine seems to grow faster with a bit dirtier water. Since I have been more meticulous with cleaning, levels, and WCs, I am noticing a reduced amount of growth. It's still growing, but not like it was before. I hover between 5 and 10ppm nitrates nowadays, was 30-40 before. I also noticed it tends to do better in the 400-420 range than anything higher...but with your amount of corals, that might be a little tough to do anyway.

Also, Asterina stars started becoming a real problem for me. They were creating little = white circles wherever they would stop to feed, which became an epidemic, but the coralline around those spots also started to bleach a bit and suffer. Since removed the vast majority of them (my god they were EVERYWHERE), it seems to have bounced back.

Another thing might be to introduce a few different kinds of coralline. I have a few different pinks, a few purples, a couple blue-ish violet, and a nice deep red. Probably 7-8 species total. The competition and varying environments within my tank give a little something for each kind to thrive in. Not sure if you'd like that or not, but it's cool to see it change and evolve over time. Also, have a couple different "types" seems to help as well. Some are encrusting, some are stoney and rough, and some give a very thin coat to the rock. I love the different textures.

I have yet to see a snail harm a single bit of my coralline, so I'd be surprised if that's what was causing your depletion.

[reeferheadlouie]

I have two cheap Chinese LEDs and 90 gallon display tank and has been running for a year and a half now with slow coraline growth. I've tried purple up and seating it with other Coraline and still have minimal growth. I have also seen many tanks under LEDs with thriving Coraline growth as well.