Has ANY ONE ???

[mitchmac]

Thought about or tried to figure out what specific gravity or salinity coraline algea thrives at ? i have been running my tank between 1.022 - 1.024 and its not growing as others have told me it will i do daily doses of kent marine calcium kent iodine and kent iron ... is there anything else i should be using ... also when i do my 5 day water changes i use essential elements and tech-M ... what can/ should i be doing if anything different ? should i let it take its own course or is there a safe way to kick start the coraline algea growth with out seeding the tank ??? any comments or idead that have worked int he past...remember this is a 10 gal ... so when it starts i know it will take off but how do i get it to start NOW lol ...

[OneDummHikk]

Give your tank 6 months. You will wish you had never seen or heard of coralline algae. But, why do you want it to take off so badly? You don't want an algae dominated system, you want a bacteria dominated system.

[Loverotties]

It will come and then spreed.Buy a frag or rock that has some on. and do a little scraping.

[ckusnierek]

I dont think the SG has much to do with it. It's the CA, Mag, and Alk that dictate growth.

BYW why are you dosing Iodine and Iron?
Make sure your testing for it if your dosing it! (#1 rule for dosing)

[dobejazz]

I would raise your salinity to 1.025 - 1.026

Have you tested your calcium and Alk?

In a 10 gallon with weekly water changes you should not need to does calcium unless you have a large amount of stony corals

[scoop]

Like Chris said, you may not want to dose Iron or Iodine, those levels should be taken care of by water changes.

[mitchmac]

the opnyl reason i was dosing is going off what the guy at the store said...idk i have done it in all of my tanks guess its jus something i have always done .... and no not of yet have i gotten a test kit....the ones i seen were like 75 bucks for a complete tank test kit... for alk, cal , ph, nitrite ,nitrate, amonia , so im just waiting till i get paid to get pick one up...i guess i wont really know how everythings running until i get a test kit..thanks tho hahaha i dont really know as muich about this stuff as i thought i did...or maybe i was just asking the right queastions to the wrong people...dumb pet store owners

[mitchmac]

o and i was dosein the calcium & iodine for coraline algae ( colors and growth ) and iron for macro algae...idk il stop and start testing and see how things are going ! thank again everybody for the comments

[Jnicho]

Agreed...don't dose anything that you can't test for!!!

My tank was set up in early Feb...I add Kalk 24/7 which keeps my Ca stable at ~400 and my Alk at ~10dKH...FWIW my SG stays at 1.026...in about 3 months the back glass of my tank is completely covered (rocks look good too!) with coralline and I have to scrape every 7-10 days to keep the dang stuff off the front and sides. As mentioned above testing and maintaining Ca/Alk and doing weekly WC's will have the stuff growing in no time.

[ckusnierek]

you can quickly overdose a tank especially a nano by dosing and not testing. like stated above all you really need to do is a weekly 10% WC and you will be fine.

And I dont see any macro in your tank pics on 5/21????

[ckusnierek]

Oh and dont listen to *most* lfs workers there just trying to make a buck....

[mitchmac]

ok..well thanks all again...img ogin to get a complete test kit tomorrow ... that and a tru perc and a pink firefish !!! then my load will be complete im going to give it afew mor weeks befor i put any corals in this one ... but im guessing 2 small fish will be enough of a load for now .. and when i start adding corals im going to do one at a time ... but thanks guysd for all the help !

[mitchmac]

o and is testing the calcium level a must? the complete kit does not test calcium levels...i hav estopped adding any chemicals to the tank and im going to do a 25% WC tonight after work...my cyno is comming back a little bit but then again i left my lights on for about 13 hours yetsterday while i wqas at work had to work late and no one couild make it over to turn em off...so im going to let them go dark today and do the chamge and a half sand vaccume hopping this wil take care of the cyno its not bad but a few spots are startting to get a red tinge to em and i dont want an outbreak ... im assuming it was the lights !

[Jnicho]

Test kits do cost some $$$ but they are a necessary part of the hobby.

As for your original question...I would try to keep your SG constant at 1.025-1.026 if you are planning to add corals. You'll need to top-off very regularly to keep it constant in a smaller tank.