Live rock die off.

[aquanaut]

Hello

Just a quick question.Ive had my live rock in the tank for about a month, it had lots of growth on it also green and purple Coraline. But now the rock looks "dead". Coraline colors are fading lots of die off and rock is grey to whiteish in color. Is this normal? Will it all come back ( i hope )?
All this die off has me concerned.
All water paramaters are normal for a month old tank.

 

[aquanaut]

Ps 6 snails and 5 blue legged crabs

 

[klam]

In my experiance live rock will fade in the begining and will start to come back slowly as long as your water is up to par. The color of coralin is also impacted by lighting it recieves or the lack of lighting.

 

[midiman]

Check calcium level. 400 is beneficial for coralline algae, according to garf.org. Also, mine bleached a bit in the new lighting, but eventually grew back.

 

[Smo]

Too much light and/or calcium too high will kill off your beautiful Coraline.
Flip some of the LR over, you may be surprised!

 

[aquanaut]

HI Smo


For lights I have 2 30 watt power glows and 1 30 watt Actinic. Last calcium test was 400. Light are on for 10 hrs right now.

 

[midiman]

I don't know about "too much calcium", but calcium is needed for coralline gowth, and for just about every other thing in your tank. "Too much" of anything would be a bad thing. Calcium 400-420 is what I do, and here are few somewhat washed-out pics of my coralline:

 

[aquanaut]

Mine kind of looks like that but areas that had it before dont now I just checked Ca. its at 420 . Nice corals on them did thet come with it.. Mine had none

 

[midiman]

.

Nice corals on them did thet come with it.. Mine had none

No, I added them. It's normal for some bleaching to occur if your rock is now in brighter light than it was previously. Some of my CA turned turned white, but is now growing back.

 

[aquanaut]

Thanks feel better

 

[austinsdad]

Did you cycle before you added this rock, or is this rock intended to cycle? While this die off occurred, how'd your ammonia read? Maybe a mini-cycle with the new rock killed of the corraline if the ammonia skyrocketed.