Astrea Snails and coralline?

[schigara]

Will astrea snails slow or prevent the growth of coralline on the glass in a new tank?

[Loverotties]

No I don't think so,I still have to scrape the glass.

[schigara]

The tank(75g w/55g sump) finished it's cycle about a month ago with 45lbs LR(great coralline) and 60lbs lace rock and I can't wait to see some coralline growing on the glass.

What will be the first signs of coralline growth on the glass?

Water parameters are.....

Ammo....0
Nitrite....0
Nitrate...10
Ph.........8.3
Ca.........420
Kh.........10
Light.......2-250 MH Iwasaki 6500K 12 on 12 off

[sausageman]

The first signs of coraline... thats hard to say .... but one thing i noticed, is I had my tank running for almost 3-4 months, and once the sump/refugium was added, with some macro in the refegium, it took about 2 weeks, before coralline was growing on the rocks and about 3-4 weeks before it took off on the glass. Most people dont see it really growing for, 2-4 months i believe, some sooner, some later, guess it's different for everyone. From what it seems like with your water levels and lighting, you should be seeing it sometime soon. Just monitor the growth thats already there, and see if it's growing, dieing, or what's happening. If something seems wrong, probably should check something out, but other then that, it shouldnt be to long. I went to bed one night with a clear glass tank, the next morning, i had pink and green dots all over the place, and from there it took off. i never added any supplements in my tank. Just keep up with water changes and you'll do great.

good luck

[schigara]

sausageman,

I have a refugium and the magro algae has been growing in mass quantities...........harvest every 4-5 days..........the stuff just about doubles in that amount of time.

The LFS I go to(Marine Fish and Reef Store) is marine only and is the best I have found in the Atlanta area, as far as cleanliness, courteous and plentiful staff and most information conforms to info on this forum and others. They advised me to use Kent Tech CB for Ca and ALK levels and Marc Weiss Combo Vital to feed the LR. What do you think of this advice?

The coralline on the LR is definitely getting more dense and brighter in color. I have green, purple, and lime green but no pink.

Below is a pic of my setup. I currently have 1 yellow tang, 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 watchman goby and an assortment of snails crabs and shrimp. Pic kinda sucks and was before any fish were added.

[Ray1214]

I started dosing with Magnisium salts and it started a chain reaction to start the coralline algae.
ray

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by schigara

...and Marc Weiss Combo Vital to feed the LR. What do you think of this advice?

keep the advice on the two part aditive, take the M@rC We|$$ and throw it down the drain. No sense in dumping extra nutrients into a reef tank where there are corals already dealing with the issues of high nutrient loads. This stuff might be fine in a system without a substrate and without corals, but for most systems with corals, particularly stony corals, there is no need to feed the live rock, let alone dump in extra nutrients that will prevent stony corals from reaching their max potential. If you don't have any stony corals, forget I said anything, as octocorals and lagoonal spp. in general will utilize these substnces by directly absorbing them through their epidermis, but it may still lead to issues with algal overgrowths is the nitogenous substances and the organophoshates get out of hand.

JM2CW

[AriZonaD54]

Astreas shouldnt have any bearing on your corraline growth... other than corraline may actually start growing on the snails shell.