Live Rock turning white???!!!?

[popothemailman]

its been about 3 weeks since i've been cycling with live rock. i have an 80gal tank with 65lbs of LR... these rocks had quit a bit of coralline on them and now the rock is starting to turn white. there are white spots starting to spread and the coralline alogia is fading into white... is this normal?? also there seems to be a lot of dark green long algea like hair. all over them.

i have 220w of lighting

all specs of tank meet a cycling tank still such as ammonia of 1 etc but the only thing is a ph of 7.8, i haven't done any water changes and my skimmer has been going crazy.

whats causing this is my rock "dieing"?

please help

 

[indy]

Dieoff is normal with uncured live rock. With ammonia of 1 or so, you are still early in your cycle so die off should be expected. It will come back over time. You do need to adjust your PH tho' 7.8 is a little low.

 

[frogiii]

imo lr turning white is not a good sign. I just set up my system and got a lot of help from this site. You might want to look at my post and see. My previous tank experience wasn't good and my lr die off turning white. The way you have described your lr, it seems the rock wasn't cure and had not been scrbbed good (hairy algae etc.) You should do what i've done, take out the rock and scrub it with saltmix water(scrubb very good mud die off etc.) and do a water change about 40%. My rocks are turning nice pulple color now and it's been 2weeks

 

[seaham358]

Like Indy says normal..... The hair algae is someting you need to get control of after the cycle is over. What kind of water are you using?

 

[RocketSeason]

pretty normal. If it starts happening after the rock is cured then you need to worry.

I had the same problem myself with "bleaching" rock. I eventually added calcium and that seems to hold it off.

also, it is possible that your spaghetti worms are spitting out sand all over your rock and giving it a "bleached" appearence. You need to run your powerhead over your rock to blow off some of that sand every once in a while.