how to get purple algae

I don't believe you can honestly say "without a doubt". There's plenty of threads debating this, so I won't get into it too much. But you did not do a blind study, no structured experiment.

You used it and had good coralline growth. I did not use it and got good growth. Whose to say it is the cause of yours?


If they marketed it as a supplement for Mg and other trace elements (that you do not need) then fine. But by naming it Purple Up they are implying it helps Coralline growth. Coralline requires stable parameters at high yields. You can not maintain that with purple up.

It's snake oil. If I gave some kid a pill that said it would make him grow faster... well, who could prove it did or didn't. Each tank is different. Coralline grows, it just does. Kids grow. You can't objectionably prove it works but you can prove you don't need it.

Buy it if you want, I don't think it'll hurt too much. Throw your params out of whack for a bit...

I don't think you should be sticking up for the one doing the misleading... I'm more concerned with fair to the consumer.

 

^^^ k+

 

.....k+

 

God, I'd rather have any kind of film algae outbreak than coralline growing like mad. At least a magfloat will get the former off glass. I wear myself out scrubbing the coralline off of the glass. If I let it get too bad then I have to use a razor blade and my tank is so deep I'd have to stick my head underwater to reach that crap in order to scrape it properly if it's growing near the bottom so the stuff sucks IMO. It just randomly took off in my tank after a few months of keeping calcium and mag levels up so just do that. Purple up is friggin 20 bucks a bottle here and my coralline didnt even grow that well when I was using it.

 

Purple up is a waste of money, plain and simple. Yes, it may increase your levels but as stated above we all want (need) our parameters to be stable. Purple up is going to bump you up temporarily which is what you don’t want. I, and others, have posted above how to grow coralline as well as to mention the ill effect.

All of which are moot btw. You will grow coralline no matter what you do – just develop your tank around healthy corals and fish and the coralline will come (sort of like Field Of Dreams).

However, its also noteworthy that the old saying “a fool and his money are soon parted” certainly does apply to our hobby. So, I suggest – whatever floats your boat….go have fun, buy it, use it enjoy.

I do water changes with Red Sea, add Epsom salts and calcium addatives and I scrape my coralline off the glass every 2 weeks or the wife is in my ear and up my…..uh, cup of coffee

 

ah i see, thanks guys for all your advice and help. Now I know I really dont want to encourage coraline growth, well not like too much lol. Sounds to be pain in the butt when they get out of hands huh

 

To YOU, its a waste of money. Plain and simple.

 

No not really because I wouldn’t buy it. I say it’s a waste because what it offers can be attained by much cheaper means – thus by definition it would be a waste of money. Just saying……

 

my opinion

I did use Purple Up for a few months on my set up when it started as a FOWLR in 2007
I did feel that I got coralline a lot faster than I had with any previous set ups whilst using this product

I learned to regret this fact when the tank (acrylic) was ruined within 12 months due to scratches which mainly occured from my efforts try and remove the purple circles from the front and sides of the tank

it is fair to say that elevated levels of Mag and calc will encourage coralline
and there are certainly more cost effective ways of doing this

another consideration is testing , whilst using this product in a FOWLR , I was not concerned about Mag and Calc levels and hadnt tested these at that stage
my desicion to reef the tank up and consequential purchase of Mag, Calc and Alk test kits revealed - Mag over 1700, Calc over 500 and the DKH was 9
now these levels are not extreme, but bear in mind I was only using 2 or 3 times per week and not daily , and when I stopped using it still had half a bottle left

so a note for those in the early stages of a reef tank , if you dont have test kits, get them and check where you are before continuing to add this type of 1 shot product

Steve

 

Don't mean to burst your bubble, but do you know what's in a bottle of purple-up?