Phureon

I've just recently started cycling a 155 gallon saltwater tank with 152 lbs of pre-cured live rock since April 4, 2009. 150 lbs of the live rock was purchased all at once at a LFS, but it took a little under 24 hours to get the rock in a rubbermade saltwater bath. There did not appear to be any die off; although, one or two of the smaller pieces became a little darker and smelled of oysters. I gave each piece a nice shake in the water to loosen any die off there potentially could have been and even a light scrub which I later found out probably was not the best thing to do.
While in the tub, one of the pieces of live rock appeared to have a light green covering on its bubbly surface. However, since the live rock has been in the tank, the green has faded to white and is now inhabited by a baby bristleworm that just recently appeared out of nowhere. Also, after the live rock's three day stay in a tub with just a powerhead and heater, it appeared that some of the coralline algae had become fainter in color (not white.. just kinda miraculously faded to be less vibrant in color). This may have been due to lack of a lighting fixture, but the tank is in a reasonably well lit area of the house. Since I've added a aqualight Elite 942watt fixture, the coralline algae either started to slowly creep back up, was there in the first place and I was just too blind to see it, or I'm just crazy and making myself see things. This also may be because of a 2 lbs live rock I purchased over the weekend and placed inside of the tank. The rock is the size of a fist and is covered every inch in a nice lavender purple.
The tank has not shown any sign of ammonia during its course as of yet. So, I decided to buy eight green chromis this past Saturday in hopes of giving the live rock a helping hand since there appeared to be no die off. I'm not quite sure if these little guys will be able to put a dent in my 155 gal tank + 20 gal sump anytime soon. Especially since the protein skimmer appears to be doing its job.
My diatoms also seemed to start to appear on one rock while in the rubbermade bath, which has recently seeded itself very finely onto all of my rock, but not my tank itself. I know that it will all work itself out in time, but I fear that my live rock was not quite as "live" as I wanted it to be for the amount I had purchased. At the time, I was more concerned with structural pieces rather than seeding/hitchhiker pieces.
So, I have recently become interested in the idea of getting small pieces of live rock that have a nice coverage of coralline algae (much like the 2 lbs rock I had mentioned before). I would really appreciate any help anyone could provide in steering in me in the right direction to find live rock that doesn't require a bulk buy to purchase that has various colors of coralline algae to help seed my tank with a diverse coloration. I would really like to avoid having to buy a large amount of the same type of rock considering I just pumped about $4,000 into making this tank already. I have read that coralline algae can be purple, red, pink, yellow, green, orange, and even blue (it's more so teal). I'm really interested in finding yellow, orange and blue seeing as how these colors seem to be quite an exotic find. I have seen where some people tend to sell plates that they put in their tanks to be covered in coralline algae over time, but I've only seen the typical purple/red tent for such. I would much rather prefer some sort of un-cured live rock though to also to get a few hitchhikers perhaps.
Any help would be appreciated though. Even just a list of colors certain rock might have, or what lighting conditions I should use if I want to promote some sort of color change. Also, any help finding something along the lines of Irian Jaya.

agsansoo

Phureon, First of all welcome to FishLore !
As to seeding coraline algae, when I first setup my tank I would visit all the LFS in my area and cherry pick the best live rock with the most coraline algae on it. Then the other choice is "Purple-Up". This will increase the coraline algae in you tank. Good luck.

Phureon

Thanks for helping me feel at home and for the reply, agsansoo.

I've looked into using purple up, but I think the bottle itself suggests not to use if the tank already has a good amount of calcium in it, and my tank currently has calcium reading of 420 mg/L. I'll probably still get it to help with the tank once I do my first water change, but a combo of IO Reef Crystals and Tropic Marin seems to have put everything at a healthy amount of all the supplements that I need.

However, the real issue that concerned me was what types of live rock gave certain colors of coralline algae. I've just recently found a few websites that have live rock comparison charts. Apparently, for the colors of coralline algae that I am interested in, certain rocks are well known to be covered in it. Rocks such as Tonga (banned unfortunately) and Melanesian (think this is aka Vanuatu).

So far, the Vanuatu looks like the best bet for me. I'm still a bit confused about Indonesian and New Guinea live rock. There isn't too much information on them that's easy to find on the internet.

As for the LFS... a lot of places appear to only carry various forms of Fiji live rock.

Mike

I think I have Fiji Tatoka and Tonga live rock. If I recall correctly, some had hints of pink in the beginning but all are now purple.

agsansoo

Yeah not much info like you said. I know my one large piece of Tonga had a lot of pink in it, hard to see it since it's on the bottom of my pile now. I'm thinking that Vanuatu live rock will offer you the best chance to be covered in purple, red, yellow, pink, orange, or green coralline algae. Keep us posted on what you find.

Ivyfer

I'm going to let the cat out of the bag... Phureon is my bf, in case anyone actually read the life story he wrote and thought the situation sounded very familiar :P We've gone to a couple of LFS in our area and currently none of them had any of the rarer colors, does anyone know of any reputable websites that sell live rock?

Matt

Very interesting

I never knew you could seed corraline algae or even get different colour coralline algae.

-Matt

Phureon

I just found something pretty interesting called "GARF Grunge Rock" which appears to be live rock rubble that contains coralline algae, micro-organisms and invertebrates. They say that comes from their live rock research tanks or something, and they sell it for $5.00 a lbs. Anyone have any experience with this that can vouch for it?

travie

From what I have read on the different colors of coralline algae, tank conditions decide the color of the coralline algae. Even if you do manage to get a hold orange and reds(the only two rare colors of coralline I've heard of), it might not grow in your tank. I know green, purple, and pink coralline are common.

Matt

I have purple and pink in my tank

-Matt

Phureon

From what I've read, lighting conditions can be solved by positioning of the rock and time-on/intensity of the lights being burned. Also appears to be easier to grow if you've got the rock the algae came from. However, I'm not quite sure how the alkalinity and temperature differences might influence its ability to grow certain colors... I'll try to keep you updated on what I end up finding out once I've got some concrete evidence.

Currently getting sidetracked by "branching" coralline algae; it seems pretty interesting, but not sure if that's something someone can grow captive.

Oil_Fan

Purple Up never really worked for me. What really did work is that I had ordered some LR from Liveaquaria to finish getting me up to the proper level of LR for my tank. That was last summer. One single piece had some coraline on it. Even though I lost a good chunk of it, that kicked off the coraline in the rest of my tank. Now you look at my tank and it's everywhere.

To me, it's all about seeding your tank with the stuff. Even if it's just some rubble that you can put into the tank.

Ivyfer

We had a deep maroon and purple coralline algae growing on our live rock but now its all covered in brown :[

silverbaby

Wow, blue coralline algae, id love to see that, currently I have green, pink, dark red, lavender and purple.

harpua2002

I have never heard that; that's really interesting. I'n the past I've had orange, blue, and even yellow, but as the tank matured it seems as though the purple, pink, and red varieties outcompeted it. I don't have that tank anymore. I have a 20H nano now that has purple, pink, green, and (unfortunately) brown.