how to get purple algae

Called Coraline algae correct?
Well, my tanks been running for awhile now since 09 July,
and in febuary my light bulbs died, so untill June I havent done anything to tank besides still have filter and power head running keeping the water cycled, but for 4 months it was left in total darkness, but yesterday at lfs I got water tested and bought new light bulbs.

0 Nitrite
0 Nitrate
0 amona
8.3 ph? I cant remember exactly.

I only had simple water tested, but while light was down for 4 months, I didnt have anything in there besides harmit crabs and snails, which seems to still doing fine, and currently got hair algae all over the place.
What do you think will help coraline algae grow back? the live rocks gotten white while my lights were down.

 

ask someone you know that has coralline algea to scrape some off and give it to you. Then take the scrapings adn place it in front of a powerhead and it will seed it.

Also make sure your calcium is up! I actually threw some LR from my tank into a sump that had no light on it. The rock had been in there for over 1 year. We recently pulled some of the rock out and there was suprisingly still some coraline on the rocks.

 

You may still have viable coralline on the rocks, but +1 on schackmel's suggestion.

 

Your tank is already seeded with coralline, its just a matter of getting your parameters correct and being patient. If you are in search of additional colors than I agree to get a tank scraping from a friend or lfs.

In addition to the parameters you posted, keep your SG steady 1.024-1.025, calcium should be above 400, test for and then dose strontium, I prefer the higher end of DKH but make sure you are in the range 7-12.

You didn’t mention if you test for phosphates, these should be zero. Good luck

 

Purple, Pink, Green

You can ask a friend of the LFS for a scraping or find a nice small piece of LR with some coralline you like, sometimes more than one kind, and add that to the tank. Keep your Ca+ and Alk in check and lower your phosphates to get rid of that hair algae.

 

keep your Mg over 1400. You won't be able to maintain your Ca without keeping your Mg up.




Here's an old shot of my tank that shows the coralline pretty well. I've got a solid back wall of it and constantly battle it on the front glass. I hate coralline. I'm actually growing out GSP on the back glass to hide the coralline. Mg was the trick for me to get it to spread.

 

Or if you cant find another tank with coralline you can buy something called "purple up" thats what i used and now i have alot of it. Just make sure if u use it to test for calcium

 

IMO purple up is a scam. When folks claim success I wonder if it would've happened exactly the same without it.

It is a very expensive way to increase your Mg levels. Sorry Chase :-/

 

ditto on the others advice, but if you don't have somewhere to get some scrapings, order some garf grunge (garf.org) - we put some of that in the back of our tank and it really started the coraline going quickly. Good luck!

 

This is a common misconception, purple up contains NO CORALLINE!! Its just an expensive way to dose additives. You'll still need something too seed the coralline. Live rock, scrapings from another tank, etc.