drumbum540

I have been reading that there are supplements that you can buy that help grow coralline algae and all the other beneficial bacteria faster. however, I can not find out what the supplements are. any help? thank you.
-drumbum540

Mike

I've used "purple up" in the past and it seems to work ok. Get test kits for calcium, alkalinity and pH and makes sure those stay up where they need to be along with your regular partial water changes and you shouldn't have any probs growing coralline algae.

Gozer_1

I still use Purple Up. I definitely had more stable populations of coraline after I started using it. You can Google Garf's Grunge. It's a live sand activator that I hear has a huge variety of coraline types in it. I want some myself but am switching to black sand so it just wouldn't work well for me. Alkalinity is very important for coraline also. Keep a close eye on your alkalinity. It's super important to keep things balanced. Keeping your alkalinity in check will help PH and calcium levels stay balanced. It's perhaps the most important thing to track in a reef tank, aside from the toxin tests. Personally I use SeaChems Reef Carbonate bi-weekly and add SeaChems Reef buffer to my top off water. I also use the Purple Up bi-weekly. Lately the coraline has been going nuts. BTW, I aslo use Reef Complete, Reef Strontium, Reef magnesium, Reef Trace and Reef Plus all spread over a bi-wekly schedule and an occasional dose of Iodide. May help as well and are a great part of a tank supplement program regadless of coraine. I've found coraline can take a long time to really take hold. It has to adjust to your system. The lighting is an important issue also. Some coralines prefer lower light levels while others like it bright. They will take time to adjust to your lighting. You'll see beautiful patches bleach away in the light only to make a total come back a month later when it has adapted to the higher light and your water conditions. Hope that helps.

drumbum540

thank you very much