My tank is turning into a giant grape!

[jasonchi]

After 6 months of Ca reactor addition. I'm able to maintain a great ALK and Ca reading. it's currently set at 11.5 dKH and 480Ca. The coralline algae is growing very fast. All my snails, clams are overed with coralline algae. The only thing in my tank that's not covered with coralline algae are coral and fish :)

This reminded me the last time I went to a LFS, they have great reef tank but every one of their tank is purple, on the rock, glass, overflow, circ pump. you name it. It doesn't look natural at all.

I want to have a good growth rate but also have a more natural looking tank.

What's the best reading I should shoot for?

[Physh1]

You can safely lower your levels a bit. I would think and alk level of 8-10 and a calcium level of 400-425 may slow the coraline. If you don't have any SPS corals you could even keep your calcium at 375-400 safely. Just my opinion so I hope nobody rips into me...:p
Coraline is nice but I know how you feel about oo much not looking natural. One of my customers tanks looks that same way....i'm working on maintaining a lower calc level hoping it'll work....

Cameron

[67muscle]

Maybe one of those spiny things (name elludes me at the moment) that eats coraline would help to shake things up a little. Personally when I see a coraline covered tank I know it's healthy but my roommate always says I need to clean it off...go figure. That's a good sign of your LFS. Very few of em around here have coraline covered tanks. If there is one tank with coraline it's their display that they only have $200 showpieces in. That's why I buy my corals/fish the day they get in the store.

You could back down the drip/flow rate and co2 rate at the same time. You really only need em at about 8-10dKH and 400ca++. My tank runs lower than this since I drip kalk and still grows it well but it's been up forever and I try to leave it alone.

[me_rob]

Urchin?

[67muscle]

That's it. LOL

[jasonchi]

Originally posted by me_rob
Urchin?

Got that, it doesn't help much. In a way it actually spead them faster.

[Randy V]

I think you've hit the biggest PIA in a successful and well functioning reef tank. The constant battle against corraline algae. I would like to be able to see into the tank, thank you. Lack of clearance to scrape corraline algae has caused me to re-aquascape more times than I would care to admit. Scraping difficult patches or corraline has also resulted in the most acrylic scrathes in my tanks. The only thing I have found is to clean more often before the patches get large.

[jasonchi]

I'm having a hard time trying to clean the larger patchs even with blade.

I have a glass tank 150G, I'm thinking about getting a larger tank, maybe a 500G acrylic, but I can't imagine how I'm gonna clean them.

[67muscle]

I have a glass as well and use those interchangable blade scrappers the metal for glass and plastic for acrylic. The metal blade (that doesn't come with em...cheap *******s) works wonders on my tank. I had the whole top of a 55 covered in one big patch of coraline and the metal blade took care of it in short order. The acrylic blade that came with it was a PITA and believe me it worked a little but not much.

I was actually negleting the tank (and everything was doing great) cause of the algae growth but now that's it's nice and clean...I give too much attention. So I posted up a big sign behind it that says....GO SLOW....lol....I look at that everytime I get frustrated at it.

[gregt]

The key is to keep on it. The more often you scrape it the easier it is.

[palmer59]

You might want to try a Blue Stripe Tuxedo Urchin (Mespilia globulis). It seem to do a good job on my tank keeping the coraline algae in my rocks fresh.

Mike