coralline algae exchange

[ddoering]

I thought I would start a thread as a place for people to post about supplying frags/scrapings of coralline algae.

I think coralline algae would be something that most people who have established tanks have in abundance, and wouldn't mind dropping a shell or some scrapings or even some small rubble into a little container and shipping to people on request or swapping.

People could use little bottles like the ones on airplanes for alcohol to ship some water and scrapings in (another possibility is in plastic film canisters but I don't know how well they seal up).

What I would like to see is people post pictures of interesting coralline algae that they have growing in their tanks and whether they are willing to join a coralline trading list.

Also would like to see the types of lighting that the coralline is grown under, as I have read on some posts that different types of coralline like different types of lighting, so would be good to know what the coralline likes so people can get what would be good for their tanks.

I also think this would be a good thing to help people setting up new tanks who want to seed their tank with specific corallines and using "dry base" rock.

I am just beginning to set up a tank and waiting on some things I ordered, and thought that this would be cool. If nothing else if people post interesting pics it will be cool to see the types of coralline out there (even if they don't want to be a swapper).

Some cool ones are offered for sale at the following link:
http://www.thesea.org/catalog/index.php?cPath=52&osCsid=d2317ee3777b01af027da9b2baa1e432

I think the "scrolling" or "wafer" corallines are pretty cool.

Anyway, if people want to get on the bandwagon for setting up a swapping list I think that would be cool, as I already am spending a lot of beer money on things for the upcoming tank(s).

Cheers,
Doug

[SurferStevo]

I tried this when I took out a powherhead from my reef. It was covered with coralline. I put it to use in my Qtank. Hoping that it would seed the tank. The coralline then proceeded to die.
That's my experience anyway.

[ddoering]

Hey srfmon,

What color was the coralline, and what was the lighting it was growing on vs. the lighting it died off with? Were there other differences in water quality (specifically calcium/magnesium possibly being added to reef and not to QT, or difference in alkalinity...)

I hope this thread will also gather some information from people out there who are successful with their coralline to give an idea of the lighting different forms require.

Also, the fact that a specific type of coralline might just die off when added to a tank is why I really wouldn't want to buy plugs of it, and figured a swap thread would encourage more people to share their unique corallines and help spread them around.

Thanks for the response,

Doug

[SurferStevo]

The qtank was under pc lighting I just changed to a 175watt MH ushio yesterday). The main tank is under two 250watt halides. The qtank gets water from the main tank when I do water changes. The diffence is that the qtank doesn't have any corals in it so there is no calcium demand. I thought it would do okay in lower lighting.