New To The Forum

[chris_duby]

I have a 72 gallon bow front tank. I'm still adding corals, fish and inverts little by little. The fish that i have is a Yellow Tang, Blue Hippo Tang, Lawnmower Blenny, and two agricultured True Percula Clown Fish. The inverts that i have is about 10 to 15 turbo astrea snails, around 5 scarlet hermit crabs, around 5 blue legged hermit crabs, a coral banded shrimp, a cleaner shrimp, a sand sifting sea cucumber, a haddon carpet anemone, a white sebae anemone, and a rock anemone. the corals that i have is a red tree sponge, a leather toadstool, an elephant ear leather, a ricordea, a pogoda cup, green center zoo's, a green tree coral, and green star polyps. The filtration that i have is two fluvals (305 & 405), a mechanical filter, and two 100 gallon seaclones. the kind of lights that i use is a coralife 48" compact flourescent, and a 36" stip light that is straight actinic (for nightfall), and 5 blue led's for moonlight glow. i was just wondering if anyone can help me with the coraline algae. its only growin good in certain areas and i just got done using the rest of the purple up bottle. i'm still adding other chemicals as needed though.

 

[Matthew5664]

Welcome to the forum

Tanks looking good so far!

Could I ask how long the tanks been running?
What type of water change regime you have
Are you adding calcium (Ca) or Alkalinity (Alk) to the tank in any way

Plus

What are you Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium (Mg) and Phosphate (PO4) reading?

The reason we like the Coraline in once it's got a foot hole it out competes other algeas for the nutrients in the water and also for the obvious aesthetically reasons. If your Ca and Alk are low them calcification can't happen and so the encrusting algea (Coraline being one) can't grow. If the Mg level is low then the Ca and Alk will fall and the same will happen. If the PO4 is to high then calcification is inhibited and again the encrusting algeas won't grow.

Hope this help in some way?

 

[chris_duby]

i had a 40 and a 33 gallon set up for about a month, and then i transfered everything to the 72 gallon. the 72 has been set up for about 4 months. every two weeks i chang out 5 gallons of water and clean all the filtration in between 2 - 4 weeks. i'm adding calcium every three days and the only thing that my test kit can do that you asked was alk. which it is at the high end of normal. a couple of days ago i moved the lights toward the front of the tank and since then ive been getting alot more white coraline and there is alot more spots that are turning darker than usual (about to start growing coraline i think).

Here is a movie that was done today

these are all done today

 

[SkiFletch]

Hehe, found your problem with coraline algae in your own pics

Urchins eat ALL algaes, including coraline algae and other calcerous algaes. They're great tank cleaners to have but you can't have both coraline AND urchins

Nice first tank, very well done

 

[chris_duby]

thank you very much...will take them out when i get home from work. let you know how it goes.

 

[Matthew5664]

WEll done Ski! a true master you are.

Chris it's a very nice tank!