New Reef Tank

[mcl.denis]

I just posted this on the General Reef Thread. . .I didn't realize there was a separate section for questions. Anyway, here goes:

I am new to marine tanks (I read about 3 books before diving into this), and it's been about 5 years since I've had a tank. I have a few questions so I will just list them out. Any help would be much obliged.

I recently purchased live rock for my tank (90 gallons). I am concerned though because much of the coralline algae is appearing white -- it was like that when purchased (off the internet). Is it dead? If so, will new coralline algae grow on it?

Some of the dark red coralline algae is starting to appear neon-orange. Is this normal? Is it something I should be concerned about?

Everything I have read has said that the Nitrate levels should spike to about 80 ppm. At three days after placing the live rock into the tank, it reached about 20, maybe 30 ppm. I checked again last night, it was about 10 ppm. I did not see a large spike. At Petco (the closest store with an aquarium section), they told me that this was normal because I used about 30 lbs of live sand which had been in for about two weeks before the rock. Good ventilation and the fact that the sand was already nitrifying caused the live rock to cure much faster and without the high nitrate levels. Does this sound accurate or reasonable? I am curing the live rock in the tank since it is not established yet.

Finally, sorry this is so long, but I heard that using the Actinic light without the white bulbs while the tank is cycling will help to promote growth on the rock. Is this true?

Thanks!

[tims]

welcome to TRT,
i will also look for your other thread adn post in to it, GRD is the main question area..

as far as the live rock,
yes you will have die off, but as far as how much and howhigh the levels.. no one , and i mean know one can tell you exact numbers.. too many fators..
if the live rock was pcked well , then you may not have much die off, but you will always have some.. having the sandin thier already did help out a lot. please add all yoru live rock you wil want in the tank before you place any fish or coral in the tank!

with the Corraline alga, 9 out of 10 times the live rock is coming from much warmer waters then what we have in our tanks, so th corraline is not going to live very long, it will come back slowly , but will not be ( most of the time) the same color. the white is the dead or dying.
HTH