How to get some Color

[Vanphyre]

Man, I tried posting a picture and it gave me some sqll error and lost my entire post. So here goes again. 8O

We finally have our tank setup how we like it after about 3 months of work and patience. It is a 46g tank with a little over 60lbs live rock, some live sand, T-5 Nova Extreme 36" lighting, etc. Slowly adding more critters to take care of the algae mess, don't want to add too many and have some starve.

Our question is how do you get so much color on the Live Rocks? We love how our live rock looks (shape, arrangement, size), but it is lacking in the color department. Did everyone start this way and the Coral is what adds the color? What would be some good corals to start with? Do they grow / multiply or do we need to buy enough to cover all of the live rock?

Thanks for the help, again we are having a blast with this hobby!

S&J

Attempting one more time to insert a picture....

 

[Reese]

It takes time for coralline algae to cover your rocks. First of all, I'm pretty sure that you have to have some, even just a little, in your tank. If you have some on your rocks, that's enough. If not you could always get some scraped off for you from a LFS. I've read that certain lighting helps the growth and I know that supplementing with calcium will help immensely. But I'd be careful about dosing your tank with anything. If your tank is new, just have patience...

 

[Brenden]

As Reese said all you need is a start of coralline and with proper water care and light it will grow like crazy. That is if you are talking about the purples, pinks, etc you see on most peoples rocks.

 

[hackteck]

some is starting to grow on mine that didnt have any when i first started up my tank

 

[Vanphyre]

Thank you much for the responses, I will look into further water care such as calcium supplements and such. I think my lighting is good, it has a parabolic reflector, protective splash lens, Slimpaq 460nm Actinic and 10000°K T-5 HO lamps (2 of each), and 3 moonlight LEDs.

Yep, purples, pinks, and such would be a great start!

 

[lando]

For starters, go out to the LFS and see if you can find a couple nice pieces of LR that have good color to them. Add them to the tank and give it some time. Dosing CA may be in order just make sure you know your baseline levels BEFORE you add anything to the tank.

 

[pkremer]

Yes, I'm glad you love your rock! I like the way you have it set up too! I have a few rocks that I purchased already cured from a LFS, and after 1 month, they are lighting up like a Christmas tree! All kinds of purples and greens.

If you could get a piece or 2 of rock pre-cured from your LFS with some purples and greens, then you could put that somewhere in your arrangement, and as has been mentioned, it will slowly spread to all your other rocks!

Paul

 

[mybug]

Best tips I can give are to blow the rock off with a turkey baster once a week. I use SeaChem's Reef Advantage Calciuma and Reef Builder to manage the alk, calc, mag, strontium in balance.

Coralline algae can grow under even low light like that with NO lights.

I do a partial water change once a week maintaining good water quality. Before long the spores from some of the live rock will spread and the purple will appear.

 

[dankent]

turkey baster ... good idea .. gonna try that myself

 

[h8z2luze]

How big of a water change do you do?

 

[Vanphyre]

Also think that Turkey baster is a cool idea, never would have thought of doing that. Gonna order some of the Seachem products, hopefully will see some good results later.

One more question, this is off my own topic, but meh...

Right now we just have the Live Rock, 2 Powerheads, and the Heater. Am I missing a filter that I should have (like a protien skimmer), or is the Live Rock a good enough filter? We plan on adding some corals, Annenome, Blue Tang, and Clown Fish later on.

 

[hackteck]

i would add a skimmer at the very least