ideal coraline conditions?

[copi]

What conditions are needed to encourage coraline growth?

Lights (w per gal?)
Calcium levels?
Other?

I'm currently FO so I don't have good lights or monitor calcium, but these are things I'm looking to upgrade along with anything else needed to meet my coraline and other goals.

Also, where does coraline come from? Do you need to introduce it to the system via LR, etc, or does it find its own way like algae?

 

[lando]

Lighting is not really important in coraline growht, although CF will produce better growth then NO. Keep your calcium high at over 450ppm.

 

[RMPD109]

I have been told that strontium will also lead to coralline spreading quickly.

 

[loganj]

Keep your calcium and alk balanced. Don't worry too much about lighting. I maintain a 75g tank for a lady that has two 40w bulbs...one actinic and one daylight. Coraline is a nuisance in the tank...it has to be constantly scraped off the front glass. The rock is encrusted with layers and layers of deep purple coraline.

 

[ZoozFishMaster]

Remember to keep phosphates low.

 

[MarineFlake]

Alk/ca/mg..Get your alk up around 9 - 11dKh and ca around 400ppm mg around 1300ppm and you;;l get more than you can shake a scraper at..

GL!

 

[jamal-188]

I've actually found that it grows fater under less intense lighting. It grow faster in my PC tank than in my 110 w/ 2x250 MH's. In my 110 it grows fastest on the underside of rocks and on the glass below my overflow box and below all the power heads.

 

[seaham358]

I only keep the alk and cal in balance like the others have said..... Never tested for mag or stron, never heard they were important for coralline growth before.
I have tons of CA in my 125 reef with VHO lighting and I have tons in my 55 fowlr with NO lighting. As others have said it will grow under most lighting conditions but seems to be slower under MH. Talking to some of my friends who have MH lights and there CA growth is slow.
So I would pick up a test kit for alk and cal, I dose the tank with Bi-ionic 2 part system to keep the levels balanced. If your levels are down bring them up slowly. Good luck

 

[Jason]

I know this is going to sound really bad and go against every "rule" of reefkeeping, but i didn't do a water change for about a month and overfed all of my corals with microvert and phytoplex and haven't changed my filterpads in probably 4 months and the other day almost overnight the entire right side of my aquarium had correline all over it like it just happened for no reason.

Oh, and all of my coral looked crazy good that day too.

So i don't know what caused it, but i am ceratainly not wanting to clean it off of the front glass when it spreads to it......

 

[dralarms]

The rock is encrusted with layers and layers of deep purple coraline.

I thought this is what we wanted?

I have been told that strontium will also lead to coralline spreading quickly

I was told the same thing.

 

[kwan]

I only have 2x40W NO, one actinic and one daylight. My ca is 400 and I have coraline all over LR, snail shells and glass.